BaZi vs Western Birth Chart: Four Pillars vs Natal Chart

What is the difference between a BaZi chart and a Western birth chart?

A Western birth chart, also called a natal chart, maps where the sun, the moon and the planets stood in the sky when you were born, sorted into twelve signs and twelve houses. A BaZi chart, also called the Four Pillars and on this site the Energy Chart, turns the year, month, day and hour of your birth into four pairs of Chinese calendar signs and reads the balance of the five elements among them. One is a picture of the sky over your birthplace, and the other is a reading of the calendar at your moment of birth.

Both are forms of astrology. They grew up far apart, and neither has been proven to predict events. Chinese astrology is a form of fortune telling, and we read the chart as a map of tendencies and timing, not a fixed fate. For the wider picture of both traditions, see our complete comparison of Chinese and Western astrology.

What birth data each chart needs

A Western natal chart needs your date of birth, your exact time of birth and the place you were born. The place sets the horizon, which decides your rising sign (the sign coming up in the east as you were born) and the twelve houses. The rising sign changes about every two hours, so a birth time off by half an hour can shift it. Without a birth time you still get the sun and most planets, but no rising sign or houses, and the moon can be unclear, since it changes sign about every two and a half days.

A BaZi chart needs your date and time of birth. For most birthdays, the year, month and day pillars come from the date alone. The hour pillar comes from the time, in two hour blocks named after the twelve animals: Rat from 11 pm to 1 am, Ox from 1 to 3 am, and so on. The place only sets the local time, and some readers adjust that to local solar time. There is no horizon and there are no houses. Without a birth time you still have three of the four pillars.

The two charts also turn over on different days. Western signs change around the 18th to the 23rd of each month. The Chinese chart counts its year from the Start of Spring, about February 4, so a birthday in January or the first days of February belongs to the year before. Its months start around the 4th to the 8th of each Western month, on the solar terms, 24 points that split the sun's yearly path into 15 degree steps.

What a Western natal chart is made of

A natal chart is drawn as a wheel with four kinds of parts.

• Planets. The sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and in modern practice Uranus, Neptune and Pluto as well. Each one stands for a part of you: the moon for feelings and needs, Venus for love and taste, Mars for drive, and so on.
• Signs. The twelve signs from Aries to Pisces are equal 30 degree slices of the sun's yearly path, counted from the March equinox. A sign colors how a planet acts. The signs fall into four elements: fire, earth, air and water.
• Houses. Twelve sections of the wheel set by the horizon at your birth time and place. Each house covers an area of life, such as home, work or partnership.
• Aspects. The angles between planets. The main ones are the conjunction (0 degrees), sextile (60), square (90), trine (120) and opposition (180). They show which parts of the chart work together and which pull in different directions.

So a Western chart reads like a set of sentences: a planet, in a sign, in a house, tied to other planets by aspects. Mars in Leo in the tenth house, for example, is read as drive shown openly and aimed at career.

What a BaZi chart is made of

BaZi means "eight characters." The chart has four pillars, one each for the year, month, day and hour of birth, and each pillar holds two characters stacked on top of each other.

• The heavenly stem sits on top. There are ten stems, a yang and a yin form of each of the five elements: Yang Wood, Yin Wood, Yang Fire, Yin Fire, and so on through Earth, Metal and Water. Yang is the outgoing form and yin the quieter one.
• The earthly branch sits below. There are twelve branches, and they are the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, from Rat to Pig. Each branch has its own element and holds one to three hidden stems inside it. The Tiger, for example, carries Wood with a little Fire and Earth.

Stems and branches pair up in a fixed cycle of sixty. The year pillar holds the animal most people know as their Chinese zodiac sign. The day pillar comes from a count of sixty days that has run without a break for more than two thousand years.

The stem of your day pillar is your core element, and the rest of the chart is read in relation to it. The reader counts how much of each element shows up across all eight characters and looks at the balance: which elements are strong, which are thin, and which are missing. The five elements feed each other in one cycle, as Wood feeds Fire, and hold each other in check in another, as Water puts out Fire.

There are no planets in a BaZi chart. China also had an astrology built on the planets, but the Four Pillars work from the calendar. Our Energy Chart guide shows how the full chart is laid out.

Where the two charts meet

Both systems follow the sun's yearly path, and they cut it at different points. Each Western sign begins on one of the twelve middle solar terms: Aries at the Spring Equinox, Cancer at the Summer Solstice, Pisces at Rain Water. Each Chinese month begins on one of the other twelve terms, which fall about halfway through a Western sign. So your month animal and your sun sign overlap without matching. The Tiger month, from about February 4 to March 5, is roughly half Aquarius and half Pisces.

What each chart reads

Personality

Western astrology usually starts with three placements. The sun sign describes your core identity, the moon sign your emotional needs, and the rising sign the way you meet the world.

A BaZi reading starts with the core element and asks how well the rest of the chart supports it. A Yang Wood core element, pictured as a tall tree, is read one way in a chart full of Water and Wood and another way in a chart heavy with Metal. The animals add color, and each pillar is linked to an area of life. In the classical reading the year pillar speaks to family background and early years, the month pillar to parents and work, the day pillar to you and your closest partner, and the hour pillar to children, plans and later life.

The element words can mislead. Western fire, earth, air and water group the signs. The Chinese five elements are phases that turn into one another, and a BaZi chart with a lot of Fire is a separate idea from a chart full of fire signs.

Relationships

Western astrologers compare two people with synastry, which sets one natal chart against the other and looks at the aspects between them, such as one person's Venus and the other's Mars. Some also blend the two into one composite chart.

A BaZi comparison looks at how two core elements relate, whether one chart supplies an element the other lacks, and how the animals get along. Classical texts name six harmony pairs, four trines (groups of three animals that work well together), six clashes between opposite animals and six harms (pairs said to wear on each other), among other ties. Our compatibility pages score those four.

How each chart handles time

Western astrology times events by following the planets after your birth, mainly in three ways.

• Transits compare where the planets are today with where they were when you were born. The best known is the Saturn return, when Saturn comes back to its birth position around ages 29 to 30 and again around 58 to 60.
• Progressions move the birth chart forward at a slow, symbolic pace, most often counting each day after your birth as one year of life.
• The solar return is a chart for the moment each year when the sun returns to its birth position, on or near your birthday.

BaZi times things by laying new pillars over your birth chart.

• Ten year chapters, also called luck pillars, are a string of stem and branch pairs worked out from your month pillar. The first one starts at an age computed from your birth date, often in childhood, and each lasts ten years.
• Yearly pillars are shared by everyone. 2026 is Bing Wu, the Fire Horse year, and 2027 is Ding Wei, the Fire Goat year. The element in each year name comes from that year's stem; the animal keeps its own element. Each year's elements are read against your own chart.
• Monthly pillars change at the solar terms, early in each Western month.

Your own animal year comes back every 12 years, so 2027 is the animal year for everyone born a Goat. The same stem and branch pair, such as Fire Horse, returns every 60 years.

BaZi and the Western birth chart side by side

• Birth data: Western natal chart: Date, exact time and place. BaZi (Four Pillars, Energy Chart): Date and time; place only to set local time.
• Without a birth time: Western natal chart: No rising sign or houses; the moon may be unclear. BaZi (Four Pillars, Energy Chart): Three of four pillars; no hour pillar.
• Built from: Western natal chart: Positions of the sun, moon and planets. BaZi (Four Pillars, Energy Chart): The Chinese solar calendar and a sixty day count.
• Main parts: Western natal chart: Planets, 12 signs, 12 houses, aspects. BaZi (Four Pillars, Energy Chart): 4 pillars, each a stem and a branch (8 characters).
• Starting point: Western natal chart: Sun, moon and rising sign. BaZi (Four Pillars, Energy Chart): Core element (the stem of the day pillar).
• Elements: Western natal chart: four (fire, earth, air, water). BaZi (Four Pillars, Energy Chart): five (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water).
• Relationships: Western natal chart: Synastry and composite charts. BaZi (Four Pillars, Energy Chart): Core elements, element balance and animal ties.
• Timing tools: Western natal chart: Transits, progressions, solar return. BaZi (Four Pillars, Energy Chart): Ten year chapters, yearly and monthly pillars.

Can you use both charts?

Yes. The two charts describe a life in different terms, so they do not line up one to one, and neither one proves or disproves the other. A simple way to start is to write your sun, moon and rising signs next to your core element and your four animals, then compare what each tradition says about the same year or the same relationship.