What's my rising sign?

Your rising sign, also called your ascendant, is the zodiac sign that was coming up over the eastern horizon at the moment you were born. It describes how you meet the world: your first impression, your manner, how you start things. It's also the starting point for the twelve houses in your chart.

You need your birth time and place to find it.

Find your rising sign

Why it needs an exact time

The Earth turns once a day, so all twelve signs rise over the horizon in about 24 hours. That's a new rising sign roughly every two hours, and the exact degree moves about one degree every four minutes. Ten minutes can be enough to change your rising sign if you were born near the edge of one.

Place matters too. The sky rises at a different moment in Lisbon than in Tokyo, and how fast each sign rises depends on how far north or south you are. If you don't know your time, we leave your rising sign out rather than guess. Here's what you still get.

Some rising signs are rarer than others

The signs don't take equal time to rise. In the Northern Hemisphere, Cancer through Sagittarius rise slowly, taking up to about three hours at mid-northern latitudes, and Capricorn through Gemini rise quickly, some in under an hour. So Virgo and Libra rising are common in places like Europe and North America, and Pisces and Aries rising are much rarer. In the Southern Hemisphere it's the other way round.

Your chart ruler

The planet that rules your rising sign is your chart ruler, and where it sits in your chart says a lot about where your life gets its direction. A Leo rising's ruler is the Sun, so the Sun's sign and house matter twice over. A Gemini rising's ruler is Mercury, and so on.

The twelve rising signs

Find your rising sign

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