How common are an empty ming palace, a missing element, or a house-system mismatch?
Base Rates of Natal Chart Features in Bazi, Zi Wei Dou Shu, and Western Astrology: A Fixed-Grid Distribution Study
김건엽 · · 20,220 birth times · 20,220 charts computed
The short answer
Most chart features that readers are told are rare or deficient are common. We computed 20,220 charts on an even grid of Seoul birth times from 1960–2019 and counted.
16.4%of Zi Wei charts have an empty ming palace — roughly 1 in 6.
68.0%of Bazi charts are missing at least one element among the eight characters (18.3% once hidden stems are counted).
96.1%of charts place at least one body in a different house under Placidus and Whole Sign (53.2% of individual bodies).
2.0×At Seoul’s latitude a Leo Ascendant is this much more common than a Pisces Ascendant.
Zi Wei Dou Shu — the ming palace
Make-up of the ming palace
Ming palace
Share
Distribution bar
Empty (no major star)
16.4%
One major star
49.9%
Two major stars
33.6%
Number of palaces with no major star in one chart. Major stars move in pairs, so the count is never odd.
Empty palaces
Share
Distribution bar
0
17.7%
2
65.6%
4
16.7%
When the ming palace holds a single major star, which one
Single star
Share
Distribution bar
Tian Tong
4.5%
Qi Sha
4.3%
Tai Yin
4.2%
Ju Men
4.2%
Tian Liang
4.2%
Po Jun
4.2%
Tai Yang
4.1%
Tan Lang
4.1%
Tian Xiang
4.1%
Tian Ji
4.0%
Tian Fu
4.0%
Wu Qu
1.5%
Lian Zhen
1.4%
Zi Wei
1.3%
Bazi — a missing element is the default
Number of elements absent from the eight characters (stems plus main branch qi)
Missing elements
Share
Distribution bar
0
32.0%
1
50.8%
2
16.4%
3
0.8%
4
0.0%
Share of charts missing each element. Earth spans four branches and two stems, so it is rarely absent.
Element
Share
Distribution bar
Wood
19.8%
Fire
18.8%
Earth
7.4%
Metal
20.5%
Water
19.7%
Western astrology — house systems, Ascendant, retrogrades
Share of bodies placed in a different house by Placidus and Whole Sign
Body
Share
Distribution bar
Sun
52.8%
Moon
52.9%
Mercury
52.6%
Venus
52.5%
Mars
53.3%
Jupiter
55.3%
Saturn
52.6%
Uranus
53.3%
Neptune
52.3%
Pluto
54.0%
Ascendant sign distribution at Seoul (37.6°N). The dashed line marks an even split across twelve signs (8.3%).
Ascendant
Share
Distribution bar
Aries
5.3%
Taurus
6.2%
Gemini
8.1%
Cancer
9.8%
Leo
10.3%
Virgo
10.3%
Libra
10.3%
Scorpio
10.3%
Sagittarius
9.8%
Capricorn
8.0%
Aquarius
6.3%
Pisces
5.2%
Share of birth dates (1,685 dates) on which each planet was retrograde
Planet
Share
Distribution bar
Mercury
19.3%
Venus
7.2%
Mars
9.5%
Jupiter
30.4%
Saturn
36.4%
Uranus
41.5%
Neptune
43.9%
Pluto
43.2%
Across systems — independent
Whatever the Bazi day-master element, the Sun-sign element splits almost evenly. The largest deviation of any cell from full independence is 0.5 percentage points. One system’s value tells you nothing about another’s — which is why the three are computed separately and compared.
What we measured
Share of Zi Wei charts whose ming palace holds no major star
Share of Bazi charts missing at least one element, with and without hidden stems
Share of bodies placed in a different house by Placidus and Whole Sign
Ascendant-sign distribution at Seoul’s latitude and planetary retrograde rates on birth dates
Whether the day-master element and the Sun-sign element are independent
What this study does not claim
The sample is an evenly spread grid of dates and times from 1960–2019, not a real birth population. Do not read the shares as “x% of Koreans”.
Rare is not bad and common is not good. This study measures frequency only.
This is not a study of predictive power or of whether divination works.
The Ascendant distribution is for Seoul’s latitude (37.6°N) and changes with latitude.
Method and data
All three systems were computed by the same production engines this site uses, so no cross-engine difference can leak into the comparison. The calculation path contains no randomness, no wall-clock time and no external calls: the same command produces the same table.
The dataset is published in a separate repository so that a citation keeps working even if this site changes. That repository carries a CITATION.cff file, so GitHub renders a ready-made citation under “Cite this repository”.