Whole sign houses — Astrology glossary

Whole sign houses is one of the oldest house systems, common in Hellenistic and Vedic astrology and increasingly popular today. Each house corresponds exactly to one zodiac sign: the sign on the ascendant becomes the entire first house, the next sign the second house, and so on, regardless of where the ascendant degree falls. This keeps every house a clean thirty degrees and avoids the size distortions that time-based systems produce at high latitudes. It matters because it changes which house a planet occupies compared with quadrant systems like Placidus, and it separates the ascendant degree from the house cusps. For example, if the ascendant is at 25 degrees Leo, the whole first house is Leo and a planet at 2 degrees Leo still counts as first-house, even though it sits below the rising degree.