The feng shui bagua map: nine sectors, one grid, laid over your floor plan

You stand in your home with a floor plan in one hand, trying to work out which of the nine boxes on the grid is the one you are standing in.

The feng shui bagua map lays a three-by-three grid over a floor plan: eight sectors around a centre, each tied to a compass direction, an element, and one of nine life areas, from Wealth in the southeast to Career in the north. It works as a map, telling you where to look. It is not a switch that changes what happens in a room. If feng shui itself is still new territory, what feng shui actually is sets up the wider context this map sits inside; this page stays on the map layer alone.

What "bagua" actually means

The word breaks into two pieces. Ba, "eight", is the count. Gua, "trigram", is the unit being counted. A trigram is a stack of three lines, each either solid or broken, and together the three picture one quality of motion in the world. Eight trigrams give eight stable combinations, and therefore eight directions of attention you can pay to a home.

There are two historical arrangements of those eight trigrams, and the difference is worth knowing before you use either. Xian Tian Ba Gua, "Early Heaven", is the older one. It pictures the world before things took shape, and historically it was used for protection work and for funerary feng shui, not for the rooms you actually live in. Hou Tian Ba Gua, "Later Heaven", is the everyday arrangement: the world after things have taken shape, the world of houses, kitchens, beds, and front doors. Later Heaven is the one behind every sector below, and the one this guide uses throughout.

A map, not a magic switch

The bagua map does the same job a floor plan does for an architect: it gives the eye somewhere to land in a room that would otherwise be a blur of furniture and surfaces. First you decide how the grid sits over your own floor plan, by compass direction or by the wall the front door sits on. Then the walk is the same either way, sector by sector, and it is four questions rather than one verdict: what is there, what is missing, what the room is actually used for, and whether that use sits comfortably with the life area the sector points at.

The eight directions, the five elements, and the rhythms of a household have been mapped against each other for a long time, and the pairings below are consistent across most traditions, one of the few points where schools tend to agree. That is worth knowing going in: the labels are not a code someone is asking you to trust blindly. They are a working vocabulary, tested and reused across a long history of reading houses, and they turn out to be useful more than mysterious.

The nine sectors, walked clockwise from the south

South, Fame and reputation. Trigram Li, "fire". Element Fire. How your household looks from the outside: visibility, recognition, the things you would be glad to have seen.

Southwest, Love. Trigram Kun, "earth". Element Earth. Partnership, openness, and the conditions that keep a relationship steady. Often the corner that holds the bedroom, or the one a reader wishes it did.

West, Creativity. Trigram Dui, "lake". Element Metal. Children, projects, whatever the household is in the middle of making.

Northwest, Travel and helpful people. Trigram Qian, "heaven". Element Metal. Mentors, allies, journeys, the network around the home.

North, Career. Trigram Kan, "water". Element Water. The path of your working life, and how work enters the home.

Northeast, Knowledge and study. Trigram Gen, "mountain". Element Earth. Learning, quiet ground, the desk where the thinking happens.

East, Health and family. Trigram Zhen, "thunder". Element Wood. Air, light, sleep, growth, the family line going back. Often the corner that also touches the kitchen and the family room.

Southeast, Money. Trigram Xun, "wind". Element Wood. The wallet, the stove, the things that feed the household.

Centre, Wellbeing and balance. The classical name is the tai chi, "great pole". Element Earth. The quiet ground the other eight sectors sit around, usually the room or hallway that lands here once you overlay the grid. Keep it open.

The map is the map, the room is the territory

Nothing above asks you to charge a corner or activate a wall. It asks you to notice, which is a smaller and steadier thing to be asked to do. A corner is not a switch. It is a sector of a floor plan that has been quietly doing a job, whether or not anyone named it, and naming it is most of the work. Stand in the doorway of any room in the walk above, and the same question applies: does what is actually happening there agree with the life area the map says belongs to that corner, or has the room drifted into being used for something else entirely.

Tonight

Sketch or print your floor plan, lay a nine-square grid over it, and walk it once, sector by sector. Name what is actually in each one, and check whether the room's real job matches the life area the corner points to. Start with whichever of the nine areas your eye went to first when you read the list above; that is usually the one asking to be looked at.