Traditional Chinese astronomy has a system of dividing the celestial sphere into asterisms or constellations, known as "officials" (Chinese 星官 xīng guān). The Chinese asterisms are generally smaller than the constellations of Hellenistic tradition. The Song dynasty (13th-century) Suzhou planisphere shows a total of 283 asterisms, comprising a total of 1,565 individual stars. The asterisms are divided into four groups, the Twenty-Eight Mansions along the ecliptic, and the Three Enclosures of the northern sky. The southern sky was added as a fifth group in the late Ming Dynasty based on European star charts, comprising an additional 23 asterisms. The Three Enclosures (三垣, Sān Yuán) are centered on the North Celestial Pole and include those stars which could be seen year-round. The Twenty-Eight Mansions (二十八宿, Èrshíbā Xiù) form an ecliptic coordinate system used for those stars not visible (from China) during the whole year, based on the movement of the moon over a lunar month.

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