What is the orientation of residential houses in China

Chinese homes are usually oriented (sitting north to face south).

Sitting north to face south is a term used to describe the orientation of a house, i.e., the house is located on the north side, the back of the house faces north, and the door opens on the south side. As early as in the primitive society, the Chinese ancestors in accordance with the construction of village houses facing south, the vast majority of houses found are the main door facing south. Nowadays, facing south is basically saying that the main functional rooms of a house (e.g. living room, master bedroom) are facing south, or the main surface of a house is on the south side.

In the ancient homes, most of the homes to take the south or south direction, but there are other direction, for fear of "bad luck" is too heavy, the ancient homes are rarely facing south, north, east, west of the four directions, but more than four directions in addition to the other direction as the direction of the house.

The geomancy of the residence of the sitting direction is very important, there are many discussions. The "Eight Houses School" of geomancy categorizes houses into "Four Houses in the East" and "Four Houses in the West". The "East Four Houses" refers to the houses that sit in the east and face the west (the Zhen Houses).

Sitting southeast toward the northwest (Xun House), sitting north toward the south (Kan House), sitting south toward the north (Li House) four kinds of houses; "West four houses" refers to sitting northwest toward the southeast (Qian House), sitting southwest toward the northeast (Kun House), sitting northeast toward the southwest (Burgundy House) and sitting west toward the east (Tui House) four kinds of houses.

Historical Background:

As early as primitive society, Chinese ancestors built village houses according to the direction of sitting in the north and facing the south, and by the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, measuring the direction was the first step in choosing the environment. In ancient times, north was yin and south was yang; north of the mountain and south of the water was yin, and south of the mountain and north of the water was yang.

House orientation is an ancient traditional architectural statement, most Chinese houses are built in the form of courtyard, in which the orientation of each house represents the location of the house is good or bad. House sitting direction judgment is to use the following method.

Inside the house, facing the door of the house, this time facing what direction, the house seat is what direction, this is called "to", and the location of the house is called "sit", then sit north to south of the house, is located in the north side of the door towards the south of the house.