The 11th house is the eleventh segment of a birth chart, and astrologers read it for the people and groups a person belongs to, and for hopes shared with others. Below: what popular guides say, where the house sits on the wheel, the two early lists, and how often planets land in it in our own sample. All of it is tradition, offered for reflection.
What the 11th house is read for
Friends, groups and belonging
Guides widely describe the 11th house as the house of friends and groups. Astrology.com calls it the House of Friends and lists clubs, organizations, social groups and professional associations. Astrology Zone speaks of true friendships and all platonic relationships, plus acquaintances and networks. Numerologist.com says most modern books introduce it as the house of friends and groups, and argues for a richer starting point. Wikipedia’s summary of Greene calls it the sphere of collective ideals and group dynamics.
Hopes and the future
A second theme is hopes. Astrology Zone calls it the house of hopes and wishes and of what a person aspires to. Astrology.com says it speaks to hopes and dreams and what we want to achieve. Astrostyle says the 11th house is more concerned with the future than the past, and it adds technology and science. Wikipedia’s summary of Houlding names hopes, wishes and alliances as traditional associations. These are descriptions of what the house is read for, and no guide here can say whether any hope will be met.
Shared causes
Several guides add causes. Astrology Zone lists humanitarian and community activities and charity events, and Astrostyle mentions activism. Wikipedia’s summary of Rudhyar reads the house as future-oriented aspirations and participation in collective movements.
Facing the 5th house
Straight across the wheel sits the 5th. Numerologist.com contrasts them: the 5th creates for personal satisfaction, and what it makes is offered in the 11th to something beyond yourself. The 5th house page takes up that side.
A planet among friends
Numerologist.com says a planet in the 11th moves through a person’s wider world: friendships, communities and the future they are reaching toward. That is one guide’s reading, held as a belief, and this page gives no verdict on any planet.
The 11th house on the wheel, and its Latin name
The last of the four succedent houses, it follows the angular 10th at the top of the chart and echoes Aquarius, the eleventh sign. The pairing of houses and signs by number goes back at least to Alan Leo, who advised readers in 1903 to “pay special attention to the corresponding house”. The houses guide covers the groups and the systems.
Wikipedia’s list of houses gives its old Latin name as Benefacta, glossed as Support, and summarizes the house as friendships, social networks and community involvement. On the wheel it sits in the upper left, between the 10th and the 12th houses.
Two early lists: friends first
Sepharial, in his 1910 book Astrology: How to Make and Read Your Own Horoscope, says the eleventh house governs “friends, social relations, societies and companies”. Alan Leo, in How to Judge a Nativity (1903), lists “acquaintances, hopes, wishes and aspirations”. The two lists agree closely: the people one knows and the hopes one holds. Neither one is a forecast.
Do many charts leave the 11th house empty?
Our sample is 21,025 charts computed for 40.71 N, spaced 1 day and 61 minutes apart between 1950 and 2009, each with the Sun, the Moon and Mercury to Pluto. Nearly half had nothing here: 47.8% under Placidus and 47.7% under Whole Sign. Three or more bodies shared the house in 6.5% of the Placidus charts. With 5.68 empty houses in the average chart, a vacant 11th is nothing unusual.
The 11th house in degrees
The Whole Sign 11th is a flat 30 degrees. The Placidus version swells and narrows with latitude, and always mirrors the width of the 5th. Degrees, over a complete turn of the sky:
| Latitude | Narrowest | Average | Widest |
|---|---|---|---|
| The equator | 27.6 | 30.0 | 32.6 |
| Miami (25.8 N) | 23.7 | 30.0 | 36.9 |
| Los Angeles (34.05 N) | 22.0 | 30.0 | 39.1 |
| New York (40.71 N) | 20.4 | 30.0 | 41.5 |
| London (51.5 N) | 16.8 | 30.0 | 47.7 |
| 60 N (Oslo, Helsinki) | 11.9 | 30.0 | 57.8 |
The average stays at 30, while the range opens up northward: London’s 11th house runs from 16.8 to 47.7 degrees, and at 60 N from 11.9 to 57.8.
Morning light: the Sun in the 11th house
For a few hours after sunrise the Sun stands in this house. The Placidus windows in New York clock time, four days of 2000:
| Day | Sun in the 11th house (New York clock time) |
|---|---|
| March 20, 2000 (equinox) | 8:04 am to 10:03 am |
| June 21, 2000 (solstice) | 8:00 am to 10:28 am |
| September 22, 2000 (equinox) | 8:49 am to 10:48 am |
| December 21, 2000 (solstice) | 8:53 am to 10:23 am |
Why these hours: Placidus hands the morning stretch from sunrise to local noon to houses 12, 11 and 10 in equal thirds, and the 11th takes the middle one. June is on daylight saving time, and this is one city on four dates, not a universal schedule.
Swapping Placidus for Whole Sign
Among planets in the Placidus 11th, 40.9% also sat in the 11th under Whole Sign, 51.6% moved into the 12th and 5.4% into the 10th. The Sun was in the Placidus 11th in 8.45% of charts, slightly over the even-split 8.33%.
Finding the 11th house in your own chart
Enter your birth date, place and exact time into a birth chart calculator. The 11th house is the segment that follows the 10th house. When it holds no planet, start from the sign on its edge and follow that sign’s ruler.
The 12th house closes the wheel, and how to read a birth chart suggests an order for going through the rest.
Reflection prompts for the 11th house
Use these as starting points, not conclusions.
- Which groups do you belong to, and which of them did you choose?
- What is a hope you share with other people, and how do you talk about it together?
- How do you feel when you are one voice among many?
Questions people ask
It is the eleventh of the twelve houses of a birth chart, read by astrologers for friends, groups, community and shared hopes for the future. It is a succedent house and, in the natural order of the wheel, echoes Aquarius, the eleventh sign. It describes themes for reflection and forecasts nothing.
Guides read the 7th house for one-to-one partnership and the 11th for many people: friends, groups and shared causes. One way to put it is one person against the many. Both are read alongside the rest of the chart, and neither says how any friendship or partnership will turn out.
Nothing is missing. In our sample of 21,025 charts at 40.71 N, 47.8% had no planet in the 11th house under Placidus and 47.7% under Whole Sign. Astrologers read an empty house through the sign on its edge and the planet that rules that sign, wherever that planet sits.
By the natural order the 11th house echoes Aquarius. Astrology Zone names Uranus as its ruler, Astrology.com lists Saturn and Uranus, and Sepharial, in 1910, wrote that Saturn governs Aquarius. For your own chart, the ruler that matters is the planet of the sign on the 11th house edge.
Often. Of the planets we found in the Placidus 11th house, 40.9% were also in the 11th under Whole Sign and 51.6% had moved to the 12th (21,025 charts, 40.71 N). A planet well away from a house edge stays put. Compare both systems in a chart calculator.
Astrologers also read the lunar nodes by house. See the North Node in the 11th house, with the South Node in the house opposite.