What Is a Kua Number?
The Kua Number is a personal reference number from 1 to 9, used in the Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai, 八宅) school of Feng Shui to identify which compass directions are considered favorable or unfavorable for a specific person. It's calculated from your birth year and your gender — not your birth month or day, except for one important detail: births in January or early February may fall into the previous Chinese solar year, which changes the result. Once you know your Kua Number, it places you into one of two groups — the East Four Group or the West Four Group — each with its own set of four auspicious and four inauspicious directions.
The Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai) System
Eight Mansions Feng Shui is one of the older and more widely practiced schools of Chinese Feng Shui, built on the Later Heaven Bagua arrangement of eight trigrams around a central point. Each trigram corresponds to a compass direction and a Kua Number (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, or 9 — the number 5 sits at the center and has no direction of its own). By comparing your own trigram to each of the eight directions, the system generates four directions that are considered supportive and four that are considered unfavorable for you personally. Unlike some other Feng Shui schools that focus on the layout of a building as a whole, Eight Mansions is built around the individual, which is why the same bedroom can be auspicious for one person and inauspicious for another.
East Four Group vs. West Four Group
Kua Numbers 1, 3, 4, and 9 belong to the East Four Group, and their four auspicious directions are always drawn from North, South, East, and Southeast. Kua Numbers 2, 6, 7, and 8 belong to the West Four Group, with auspicious directions drawn from Southwest, Northwest, West, and Northeast. Which specific direction within that group counts as your best (Sheng Chi), your health direction (Tien Yi), your relationship direction (Nien Yen), or your stability direction (Fu Wei) depends on your individual Kua Number, not just your group — that's why the calculator above asks for your exact birth year and gender rather than just showing a generic East/West split.
How to Use Your Auspicious and Inauspicious Directions
The most common starting point is bed orientation: many practitioners suggest positioning your bed so that when lying down, the top of your head points toward one of your four auspicious directions — often Nien Yen for relationship harmony, or Sheng Chi for those focused on career and opportunity. The same personal directions are also commonly applied to which way you face while working at a desk or sitting at the dining table. It's worth noting that Eight Mansions is one part of a much broader Feng Shui tradition, and practitioners often combine it with other factors — room shape, door placement, natural light — rather than treating direction as the only consideration.
A Note on How This Calculator Works
This calculator follows the standard Eight Mansions calculation method and the widely used simplified year boundary of February 4th (Li Chun, the traditional Start of Spring). It's built as an educational and cultural reference tool reflecting a centuries-old tradition, not a scientific or medical instrument — treat your results as a starting point for exploring Feng Shui, not a guarantee of any particular outcome.
FAQ
What is a Kua Number and how is it calculated?
Your Kua Number is a personal number from 1-9 derived from your birth year and gender, used in the Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai) school of Feng Shui. It's calculated by reducing the last two digits of your birth year to a single digit, then applying a different formula depending on whether you were born before or after the year 2000, and whether you are male or female. The calculator on this page runs the full calculation for you.
Why does the calculation use February 4th instead of January 1st?
Classical Chinese calendar systems mark the start of the solar year at Li Chun (Start of Spring), which falls on or around February 4th each year — not January 1st. If you were born between January 1st and early February, your Kua Number is calculated using the previous calendar year. This is a common point of confusion, and getting it wrong is one of the most frequent mistakes in casual Feng Shui calculators.
What happens if my Kua Number comes out to 5?
Kua Number 5 has no directions of its own in the Eight Mansions system, because no trigram sits at the center of the Bagua. By long-standing convention, men with a calculated Kua of 5 use Kua 2's directions, and women with a calculated Kua of 5 use Kua 8's directions. The calculator applies this substitution automatically and will note it in your result.
What's the difference between the four auspicious directions?
Sheng Chi is traditionally associated with success and opportunity, Tien Yi with health and rest, Nien Yen with relationships and harmony, and Fu Wei with stability and personal growth. Many practitioners suggest orienting your bed toward your Sheng Chi or Nien Yen direction for a primary bedroom, though preferences vary by practitioner and tradition.
Can I use my auspicious direction for more than just my bed?
Yes. In Eight Mansions Feng Shui, your personal directions are commonly applied to the direction you face while sleeping, sitting at a desk, or seated at the dining table. The bedroom and bed placement are simply the most popular starting point because people spend so many hours there.