Practical guide · Life Gua · 5 min read
How to find your
Kua number.
Work through the common year-based formula, understand Gua 5, and see where different calculators can reasonably disagree.
Practical guide · Life Gua · 5 min read
Work through the common year-based formula, understand Gua 5, and see where different calculators can reasonably disagree.
The Kua formula reduces a birth year to a one-digit number between 1 and 9. The number then maps to a trigram. This page follows the common Eight Mansions convention used by our calculator; another teacher may specify a different year boundary.
First use the last two digits of the relevant solar year. For a birth before 2000, subtract those digits from 100 for male births, or add 5 for female births. For a birth from 2000 onward, subtract from 99 for male births, or add 6 for female births. Reduce multi-digit totals until one digit remains.
Male: 100 − 84 = 16, then 1 + 6 = 7. Female: 84 + 5 = 89, then 8 + 9 = 17, then 1 + 7 = 8.
Male: 99 − 0 = 99, then 9 + 9 = 18, then 1 + 8 = 9. Female: 0 + 6 = 6.
The subtractive formulas look awkward because they preserve a convention that differs by century. A Kua number chart is faster if you only need a lookup.
Gua 5 belongs to the center and does not represent one of the eight compass positions. Our calculator maps male Kua 5 to Kun 2 and female Kua 5 to Gen 8. This produces a directional result. See Why Gua 5 has no direction.
Because Chinese solar years do not begin on January 1, a Gregorian birth year can be ambiguous near Li Chun. This method uses February 4 as an approximation. The exact civil date and time vary by year and location.
Compare your result in the Life Gua calculator, where the solar year used is displayed beside the result.
Yes for most births. The birth date matters mainly near the early-February solar-year boundary.
No. Kua is a simpler year-based personal trigram. BaZi uses four time pillars and is a different system.
Use the year-based calculator and see your traditional direction set.
Look up the number for each birth year.
→Learn why a Life Gua is not a complete birth chart.
→Get the element and traditional directions.
Baguapath presents traditional frameworks for cultural learning and reflection. Interpretations vary between schools and are not guarantees about health, wealth, relationships, or future events.