Twenty-Eight Mansions

Twenty-Eight Mansions
Chinese name
Chinese二十八宿
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinÈrshíbā Xiù
Bopomofoㄦˋ ㄕˊ ㄅㄚ ㄒㄧㄡˋ
Gwoyeu Romatzyhelr shyr bah shiow
Wade–Gileserh⁴ shih² pa¹ hsü⁴
Hakka
RomanizationNgi-sṳ̍p-pat Siuk
Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanizationyi saap baat sauk
Jyutpingji6 sap6 baat3 sau3
Eastern Min
Fuzhou BUCNê-sĕk-báik Séu
Vietnamese name
VietnameseNhị thập bát tú
Chữ Hán二十八宿
Korean name
Hangul이십팔수
Hanja二十八宿
Transcriptions
Revised RomanizationIsippalsu
McCune–ReischauerIsipp'alsu
Japanese name
Kanji二十八宿
Hiraganaにじゅうはっしゅく
Katakanaニジュウハッシュク
Transcriptions
RomanizationNijū Hasshuku

The Twenty-Eight Mansions (Chinese: 二十八宿; pinyin: Èrshíbā Xiù), also called xiu or hsiu, are part of the Chinese constellations system. They can be considered as the equivalent to the zodiacal constellations in Western astronomy, though the Twenty-eight Mansions reflect the movement of the Moon through a sidereal month rather than the Sun in a tropical year. Each mansion is roughly a day of the month.

The lunar mansion system was in use in other parts of East Asia, such as ancient Japan; the Bansenshūkai, written by Fujibayashi Yasutake, mentions the system several times and includes an image of the twenty-eight mansions.

A similar system, called nakshatra, is used in traditional Indian astronomy.