The Bagua Map Explained: 9 Areas, 2 Schools, One Grid

In short The bagua (八卦, "eight trigrams") is feng shui's master map: a 3×3 grid that assigns eight compass sectors plus a center to areas of life — career, wealth, relationships, and so on. It descends from the I Ching's trigrams and the Lo Shu magic square. The two main schools place it differently: classical practice aligns it to compass directions, while the American BTB school aligns it to your front door. Know which one a book is using before you rearrange anything.

Where the bagua comes from

The eight trigrams are the core symbols of the I Ching: every combination of three solid (yang) or broken (yin) lines. Chinese cosmology arranges them in two circular sequences — the "Earlier Heaven" arrangement attributed to the mythical Fu Xi, and the "Later Heaven" arrangement attributed to King Wen. Feng shui room mapping uses the Later Heaven arrangement; the Earlier Heaven one appears mainly on protective bagua mirrors hung over doorways.

Overlaying the eight trigrams and a center onto a 3×3 grid follows the Lo Shu (洛書), the magic square in which every row, column, and diagonal sums to 15. That grid — numbers 1 through 9, each tied to a trigram, direction, and element — is the same one behind kua numbers and Flying Stars. The bagua is not a decorating checklist bolted onto feng shui; it is the coordinate system the whole tradition runs on.

The nine areas

Sector	Trigram	Element	Life area (traditional)	Associated colors
N	Kan 坎	Water	Career & life path	Black, deep blue
NE	Gen 艮	Earth	Knowledge & self-cultivation	Earth tones
E	Zhen 震	Wood	Family & elders	Green
SE	Xun 巽	Wood	Wealth & abundance	Green, purple
S	Li 離	Fire	Fame & reputation	Red
SW	Kun 坤	Earth	Relationships & marriage	Pink, earth tones
W	Dui 兌	Metal	Children & completion	White, metallics
NW	Qian 乾	Metal	Helpful people & travel	Gray, white
Center	— 中	Earth	Health & balance (taiji)	Yellow, earth tones

Each sector's element connects the bagua to the five-element cycles: to strengthen a sector, tradition adds its element or the element that generates it; to calm one, the element that controls it.

The school split: compass vs. front door

Classical (compass) method: the map follows real directions. Wealth is your home's actual southeast, career its actual north, measured from the center of the floor plan with a compass. This is the method consistent with the system's Lo Shu logic, and the one traditional practitioners use.

BTB (Black Sect) method: introduced to the US by Lin Yun in the 1980s, it ignores the compass. Stand at the front door looking in: the wall containing the door is always the career/knowledge/helpful-people row, so wealth is always the far-left corner and relationships the far-right. It trades cosmological consistency for ease of use.

Neither is "fake feng shui" — they are different lineages — but they give different answers, and most confusion in English-language feng shui advice comes from mixing them. Every page on this site tells you which method a recommendation belongs to.

Applying it without over-reading it

Divide your floor plan into a 3×3 grid (or nest the grid inside one room), identify the sectors by your chosen method, and treat the map as a prioritization tool: it tells you where tradition says to pay attention, and the five elements tell you what to add or remove. Our free Bagua Map Overlay tool draws the grid on an uploaded floor plan in either school's placement, entirely in your browser.

Bagua terminology
Term	Pinyin	Chinese	Meaning
Bagua	bāguà	八卦	'Eight trigrams'; in feng shui, the eight directional sectors plus center overlaid on a space.
Trigram	guà	卦	A stack of three solid (yang) or broken (yin) lines; the I Ching's eight basic symbols.
Later Heaven sequence	Hòutiān bāguà	後天八卦	The King Wen arrangement of trigrams used in feng shui, mapped to compass directions.
Earlier Heaven sequence	Xiāntiān bāguà	先天八卦	The Fu Xi arrangement, used on protective mirrors and in cosmology, not for room mapping.
Lo Shu square	Luòshū	洛書	The 3×3 magic square (every line sums to 15) that gives the bagua its nine-cell grid.
Taiji (center)	tàijí	太極	The center of the grid, associated with overall health and balance.

Frequently asked questions

Which bagua school should I use, compass or BTB?

Pick one and stay consistent — mixing them puts two different maps on the same floor plan. The compass method is the classical approach and what traditional practitioners use; BTB is simpler and dominant in American books. This site documents both but labels which is which.

Where is the wealth corner?

In the classical compass bagua, wealth (Xun 巽) is the southeast sector of the home. In the BTB method, it is the far-left corner as seen standing at your front door looking in. The two only coincide when your door happens to face northwest.

What if my home is missing a bagua area?

L-shaped and irregular floor plans leave gaps in the nine-square grid. Traditional remedies include mirrors, lighting, or plants near the missing zone, or 'completing' the shape outdoors with landscaping. These are traditional practices; there is no evidence a missing sector causes real-world problems.

Can I apply the bagua to a single room or apartment?

Yes. Both schools allow nesting: the grid can overlay a whole home, one floor, or a single room. In apartments, apply it to the space you actually control, using your unit's own entry (BTB) or the compass directions within the unit (classical).

Sources & further reading

I Ching (Book of Changes) — origin of the eight trigrams; full text at the Chinese Text Project.
Ole Bruun, An Introduction to Feng Shui (Cambridge University Press, 2008) — on the trigram arrangements and the modern BTB divergence.
The Lo Shu square and Later Heaven trigram sequence as given in standard references on Chinese cosmology (e.g., Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2).