Palm reading chart
Major lines
- 1Heart line. Under the fingers. Read for feeling and affection.
- 2Head line. Across the middle. Read for how you think.
- 3Life line. Round the thumb. Read for vitality, not for how long you live.
- 4Fate line. Up the middle. Read for work and direction. Many hands have none.
Minor lines
- 5Sun line. Up to the ring finger. Cheiro's line of success.
- 6Mercury line. Up to the little finger. Modern sites call it the money line.
- 7Marriage lines. Short lines on the palm's edge. Read for close bonds.
- 8Children lines. Fine uprights above them. An old-book idea that no hand can confirm.
Marks
- 9Girdle of Venus. An arc above the heart line. Cheiro read it for moods and a busy imagination.
- 10Ring of Solomon. An arc round the index finger's base. Read for a pull to the mystical.
- 11Mystic cross. A cross between the heart and head lines. Same reading, Cheiro says.
Mounts
- aJupiter. Base of the index finger. Ambition and leading.
- bSaturn. Base of the middle finger. Prudence and seriousness.
- cApollo, or Sun. Base of the ring finger. Love of beauty and being seen.
- dMercury. Base of the little finger. Wit, speech, trade.
- eVenus. Base of the thumb, inside the life line. Warmth and love.
- fLuna, or Moon. The heel of the hand, across from Venus. Imagination.
- gMars, inner. Above Venus, at the life line's start. Physical courage.
- hMars, outer. Palm's edge, between heart and head lines. Mental control.
- iPlain of Mars. The hollow of the palm. Read for how you meet a fight.
Palm Reading Scan, palmreadingscan.com/palm-reading-chart. Palmistry is a tradition, not a science.
This palm reading chart shows every main line, minor line, mark and mount of the hand on one plate. We drew it from scratch, because most palmistry charts online are old plates scanned many times over. It is a map of the vocabulary: use it to find a thing and learn its name, then decide for yourself what to make of it.
How to print or save this palmistry chart
Press Print this chart, at the top of the chart. The page prints as one sheet with the plate, the key and nothing else: no menus and no buttons. Choose the left palm first if that is the one you want on paper. To keep a copy instead of printing it, pick Save as PDF in your browser's print dialog, which most browsers offer. We don't host a separate PDF file, so what you save is exactly what you see here.
A letter or A4 sheet is big enough to hold your hand beside the plate and compare them. Real palms look far less tidy than any diagram, so expect some hunting.
Left or right hand chart? Your hand is a mirror image
Left palm
Right palm
Charts usually draw one hand and leave you to work out the other. Ours starts from a right palm as its owner sees it: fingers up, thumb on the right. Hold up your right hand with the palm facing you and it matches. Hold up your left and everything swaps sides, which is why the chart has a switch for it. The names don't change, and neither does what they are read for: the heart line still runs under the fingers and the mount of Venus still sits at the base of the thumb.
Which one to use is a separate argument. Cheiro wanted both hands compared, the left for natural tendencies and the right for what you have made of them. Other books set one hand for men and another for women, which we lay out on the left or right page. For finding your way round, use whichever palm you are looking at.
How to use a palm chart on your own hand
- Find the big three first. Bend your hand slightly and the deepest creases show themselves. Those are almost always the heart, head and life lines. Biometrics researchers Liu and Zhang call these three the principal lines, because they are "most notable and vary little over time."
- Then look for what may not be there. Numbers 4 to 11 are optional. Plenty of hands have no fate line and no sun line, and that is ordinary. Thin wrinkles aren't lines: Liu and Zhang note that wrinkles are "much thinner than principal lines and much more irregular."
- Press the letters. The mounts aren't drawn on your hand, so you have to feel for them. Press the pad under each finger, then the base of your thumb and the opposite heel. Our guide to the mounts of the hand explains how to tell full from flat.
If you want to go further, the palm reading guide reads one example hand from start to finish, and the palm reading lines page covers each line's shapes. Hand shape isn't on this chart because it applies to the whole hand, so the hand type test handles it. The line tracer is the closest thing to overlaying this chart on your own palm: you place a line on your photo and it snaps to the nearest crease.
What are the mounts on a chart?
They are the padded areas of the palm, named after planets. On our plate each has a ring and its planet's sign. Rings suggest neat circles, and you won't find those on a hand: a mount is a general area, and in many hands the upper four are hard to separate. The rings mark where the books say to look. Don't treat them as borders.
Why palm reading diagrams disagree with each other
Lay any two charts side by side and something will differ, because no one body ever standardised palmistry. A few differences you will run into:
- How many mounts. Markun counts seven. Cheiro uses seven names but puts Mars in two places. A caption on Wikipedia's palmistry article lists Mars positive and negative, a plain of Mars and a Neptune mount as well.
- Where Mars goes. Cheiro places one mount of Mars just under the top of the life line, and Markun mentions a second one "under the thumb and below the Mount of Venus." Those aren't the same place, and we have followed Cheiro.
- What a line is called. Number 6 is the Mercury line in Wikipedia's list, and Cheiro and Markun both give the name Hepatica to a line in this area. Many modern sites say money line.
- Which way a line runs. Markun notes that authorities disagree over which end of the heart line is its start, and adds: "My readers, having paid their money, may proceed to take their choice."
We drew this plate fresh, with the placements above, instead of copying any old chart. Numerologist's interactive diagram is a good one if you want a second opinion, and it will disagree with ours in places. That is normal for a tradition with no governing body.
Sources
From the chart to your own lines
Scan your hand and see them drawn on your own photo. The Complete Palm Reading reads what a chart can't show: how your lines work together.
Complete Palm Reading$9.99One payment. No subscription.
Questions people ask
- What does a palm reading chart show?
- It shows where palmistry places its lines, mounts and marks on the hand, so you can find each one and learn its name. A good chart also says what the tradition reads each part for. It doesn't show anything about you until you compare it with your own palm.
- Is there a printable palm reading chart?
- Yes, this one. The print button gives one clean sheet with the plate and the key. To keep a digital copy, choose Save as PDF in your browser's print dialog.
- Is the chart for the left or the right hand?
- Both. It starts on a right palm seen by its owner, thumb on the right, and there is a switch for the left palm. The names and positions are the same on each hand, only mirrored.
- Why don't I have all the lines on the chart?
- Most hands don't. The heart, head and life lines are nearly always there, and the rest are optional. A chart shows everything at once, so no real palm will look as busy as a chart does.
- What is the difference between a palm chart and a palm reading?
- A chart is a map of names. A reading interprets what is on a particular hand, using a tradition's rules. Readings are tradition and reflection, and no good evidence shows they predict anything.
A chart is a map. Your hand is the place.
See your own lines traced, and check them against this one.