Locality Chart
latin: no classical name — the technique is a 20th-century modern-Western development
Definition
A locality chart (also relocated chart, relocation chart) is a birth chart recomputed for a geographic position other than the actual birthplace, using the same universal time (GMT) but the new location's coordinates. The planets retain their ecliptic longitudes — the moment of birth is fixed — but the Ascendant, Midheaven, Imum Coeli, Descendant, and the house cusps shift because they depend on local sidereal time and latitude. The relocated chart is read as the natal pattern as it would have expressed had the birth occurred at the new place.
In Tradition
The modern Western tradition reads the locality chart as a relocation of the natal expression rather than a separate event-chart. Planetary patterns and aspects are unchanged; only the angles and house cusps move. A natal planet in the seventh house at birth may sit on the Ascendant after relocation; that shift foregrounds the planet's symbolism in the new geography. The technique sits alongside Jim Lewis's astrocartography (ACG) as a complementary tool: ACG maps planetary-line angularity globally, while the locality chart gives the full relocated house-wheel.
In Practice
Practitioners recompute the Ascendant, MC, and house cusps for the relocation's latitude and longitude at the original GMT of birth, retaining the natal planetary longitudes (and the natal aspects between them). The relocated chart is then read for the angles and houses the natal planets newly occupy: a planet brought to the Ascendant by relocation gains personal-expression weight; a planet brought to the MC gains vocational weight; a planet pushed to an angle's opposition or sent into a cadent house has its emphasis reduced. The technique is typically used to evaluate prospective relocations, retrospective analysis of formative life-chapters at non-birthplace residences, and travel-chart preparation. Modern locality-chart practice often pairs with astrocartography lines (Lewis) and with the broader astro-locality / astro-cartographic strand (Johndro 1929; per Rudhyar's citation).
Historical Origin
The locality chart is principally a 20th-century Western development. Holden's *History of Horoscopic Astrology* documents Jim Lewis's Astro*Carto*Graphy as the canonical late-20th-century systematization of relocation work — Lewis 1976 (ASTRO*CARTO*GRAPHY, San Francisco) and Lewis-Guttman 1989 (*The Astro*Carto*Graphy Book of Maps*, Llewellyn). Rudhyar's *Astrology of Personality* (1936) cites the earlier Johndro and Counsil 'world-basis zodiac projection' work as a parallel early-20th-c American astro-locality strand. The doctrine has no substantive pre-modern attestation: classical astrology cast the chart only for the birthplace.
Etymology
Origin: English. Meaning: 'locality' from Latin localis (of a place); 'chart' from Latin charta (paper, document). The compound names a chart computed for a specific geographic location — typically not the birthplace.
Further Reading
- James H. Holden, A History of Horoscopic Astrology
- Dane Rudhyar, The Astrology of Personality