Calculate your BaZi chart
A BaZi chart (八字, “eight characters”) is the four pillars of your birth date and time: year, month, day and hour, each made of a heavenly stem and an earthly branch. It is not a horoscope and not a forecast: it is a way to describe the moment of birth in the language of the five elements and to read time — years, months, days and hours — against it. Calculate the chart below; what every line of the result means is explained underneath.
How to read the result
- Four pillars. The upper sign of a pillar is the heavenly stem, the lower one the earthly branch; each has its element and polarity. The day pillar is the key one: its stem is the Day Master, the reference point of the whole chart. The hour pillar appears only when the birth time is known; without it the chart is honestly shown as three pillars.
- Day Master and its strength. The element and polarity of the day stem. The Day Master counts as “strong” or “weak” by the rules of the system: the season of the month, roots in the branches and support from the stems. It is a verdict about the balance of the chart, not about a person’s character. Without a known hour, the result shows how many of the possible birth hours give the same verdict.
- Balance of the five elements. How many signs of the chart fall on Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. An imbalance is neither good nor bad: it is what gets read together with the Day Master.
- Luck pillars. Ten-year periods that follow one another from the date of birth; the result shows the starting age of the first and the current one. Their direction and start depend on gender and on the year pillar — which is why the form asks for gender.
- How it was calculated. The day and hour pillars use the true solar time of the birthplace: longitude and the equation of time (Meeus) shift the clock relative to zone time. If the time is near a double-hour boundary or falls into a clocks-change hour, the chart says so and names the other possible pillar. The school choices behind every line of the result, with the thresholds and weights the engine uses, are on the Calculation method page.
What the app adds
The chart on this page is calculated by the same engine as in the BaziArt app and nothing is stored. In the app it gains hidden stems, the Ten Gods, symbolic stars, the full run of luck pillars with exact dates, “why I see this” for every sign, a day planner on your own hours and a decision journal. What is free and what the subscription includes is on the Pricing page; all functions are on the Features page.
What to know about precision
A chart depends on time and place. The birth hour changes the hour pillar and can change the strength verdict and the starting age of the luck pillars; the longitude of the place shifts solar time by up to an hour; historical zone changes are taken from the time-zone database for the date of birth. If the time is only approximate, it is more honest to calculate the chart without the hour and refine it later: the app has a rectification that checks possible hours against life events.
Questions and answers
What do I need to calculate the chart?
The date of birth, the time if you know it, the time zone of the place of birth and, for the direction of the luck pillars, the gender. The site works from the time zone alone; coordinates and the exact city can be set in the app.
What if I don't know my time of birth?
Tick "I don't know the time". The year, month and day pillars are calculated as usual, the hour pillar is not shown, and the Day Master strength verdict is checked against all possible birth hours: the page says in how many of them it holds.
Why do the pillars differ from another calculator?
This engine uses true solar time of the place of birth (longitude and the equation of time), the 23:00 day boundary and the double-hour boundaries; many calculators use clock time and midnight. The choices and their sources are on the method page.
Is my birth data stored?
No: the calculation keeps nothing. The one exception is the code for the app, issued only when you tap the button: the birth details behind it are kept for 72 hours and then deleted (see the privacy policy, section 2.11).
How do I open this chart in the app?
After the calculation tap "Get a code for the app", then in the app choose "I have a chart code from baziart.com" on the first screen. The code is valid for 72 hours and the chart is saved to the account on your device.
What is the Day Master?
The heavenly stem of the day pillar: the sign the rest of the chart is read against. Each of the ten stems has its own page on this site (the ten Day Masters), and the library explains how the "strong" or "weak" verdict is made.
Read on
- What BaZi is and how to read the four pillars: What a BaZi chart is, where its four pillars and eight signs come from, and how to read them on a real example calculated by the BaziArt engine.
- How the Day Master is found, and what “strong” and “weak” mean: How the Day Master is found in a BaZi chart and how its strength is judged: the season, the roots and the supporting signs, shown on a real chart.
- Why the place of birth and true solar time matter: Why the place of birth changes a BaZi chart: true solar time, the correction for longitude and the equation of time, shown on a chart where the hour pillar depends on it.
- What the ten-year luck pillars are: What the ten-year luck pillars of BaZi are, how their start age and direction are calculated, and how the app reads them against the chart, on a real example.
- How the schools differ, and which choices the engine makes: Why BaZi and Qi Men calculations differ between schools, which choices the BaziArt engine makes at each fork, and where every one of them is published.
- What Qi Men Dun Jia is, and how an hour is chosen: What Qi Men Dun Jia is, how an hour chart is built, and how the BaziArt planner rates the double hours of a day for a task and a direction, on a real example.
- The ten Day Masters
- Course: The five elements and your Day Master
- Calculation method
A tool for self-reflection and planning, not a forecast of the future: it does not diagnose and does not replace a doctor, a lawyer or a financial adviser.