The twelve palaces

Direct definition

Each Zi Wei chart has twelve palace names arranged on twelve earthly-branch cells. The cells stay in calendar order. The names shift according to the Life Palace, which is derived from month and hour under the declared rules.

Opposing palaces sit across the grid. Three palaces that share a harmony relationship form a triangle. Adjacent palaces show sequence, not automatic cause.

What fateshow needs before it can calculate

A chart in this wiki is a calculated object, not a personality label. fateshow uses the iztro engine. The minimum inputs are birth year, month, day, hour, and gender. You may enter a solar date or a declared lunar date. The hour is converted into a two-hour branch; 23:00 is treated as late Zi.

Leap months, year boundary, day boundary, and the transformation table follow the live engine configuration. The generated report returns a snapshot of those settings so another calculator can be compared against the same rules. If the birth hour is missing, stop at the definition layer and do not guess palace positions.

The twelve domain names

The list below is a vocabulary, not a set of predictions. A palace only becomes evidence when a calculated chart shows which stars occupy it.

• Life Palace — temperament, approach, and the chart’s centre of gravity.
• Siblings Palace — peers, cooperation, and close non-romantic allies.
• Spouse Palace — partnership pattern, not a named person.
• Children Palace — offspring, students, and projects you bring into the world.
• Wealth Palace — how resources tend to arrive and leave.
• Health Palace — constitution and strain, not a diagnosis.
• Travel Palace — movement, relocation, and how you meet the outer world.
• Friends Palace — networks, support, and the quality of alliances.
• Career Palace — vocation, office, and public role.
• Property Palace — housing, foundations, and inherited material base.
• Fortune Palace — inner ease, rest, and non-material satisfaction.
• Parents Palace — elders, authority, and early formation.

Inner and outer groups

Life through Health are often taught as the nearer, personal palaces. Travel through Parents are often taught as the more public or environmental palaces. The split is a teaching aid. It does not mean the second six can be ignored.

To see how palaces talk to each other, continue to the san fang si zheng page. To see what sits inside a palace, continue to the fourteen major stars.

Safety boundary

Traditional symbolism is a conditional reading frame. It is not medical, legal, or financial advice, and a single star or palace cannot replace the full chart, the declared settings, and the timing layer.