Astrocartography: What It Means, How To Calculate Your Chart & How To Apply It To Your Life

Astrology is like a blueprint of how the stars make up who we are as individuals, with our natal charts revealing why we process the way we do, love who we love, communicate in certain ways, and more.

Astrocartography adds another dimension to how we look at the stars when we were born and the physical locations they correlate to.

As explained by Locational Astrologer KJ Atlas, creator of Grove Almanac, “Astrocartography is a technique under the branch of ‘Locational Astrology,’ or the study of your personal astrology through the lens of where you should live to complete your specific goals.”

According to Atlas, this is typically done by looking at the Astrocartography map, which was created by Jim Lewis in the 1970s.

In order to calculate your astrocartography chart, you’ll want to use an astrocartography chart calculator. Atlas suggests Astro.com, noting that it's a good place to start to “see what is generally going on and give you an automated description on the side.” 

You’ll input your birth date, location, and time and will be shown a world map with colored lines running vertically and horizontally through specific locations.

These lines will be associated with a planet and its placement at the time you were born, with the planet symbols shown at the top of the chart. 

All planets have associations with different aspects of your personality, and depending on where they were at your time of birth, they can give you insight into what you’ll experience in each location. 

Each colored line in your chart is associated with a planet that is listed at the top of the astrocartography chart by a symbol.

You’ll want to understand the meaning of each of the planets so you know what each location is supporting for you in your life. 

According to Atlas, “Cardinal points are the most important areas of life, representing you, your family, your partner and your career. Those are the areas of life that are typically the most important things that people want to know about.

What's my purpose? Where should I live, and where's my partner? Those angles represent those areas of life.” 

Specifically, if you look at your IC (which is ruled by the 4th house of home), it can be a great place to live. As Atlas says, “It's your home, it's how safe you feel in your body and in your house.” 

If you’re in search of love, using your astrocartography can help you discover where you might be more likely to meet someone or fall in love.

You’ll want to look at your Venus or Mars lines to see where love and romance are energetically most powerful for you. 

Using your astrocartography lines as location placements in the world can help make traveling—or even moving, finding love, or boosting your career—a more intentional and deeper experience. 

If you’d like to know more about the significance of your cardinal points, find out more about your midheaven. And if you’re still learning the basics of your astrology birth chart, get further acquainted with your big three: your sun, moon, and rising signs.