---
title: "The Chinese auricular standard"
url: "https://acuiq.com/wiki/nomenclature/the-chinese-auricular-standard"
updated: 2026-10-12
last_verified: 2026-10-12
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
section: "nomenclature"
basis: "Classical and modern"
audience: "Practitioner"
published: "2026-10-12"
reading_minutes: 11
sources: 6
---

# The Chinese auricular standard

_GB/T 13734-2008, China's national standard for ear points: its 93 points in 10 regions, how its zone codes are built, the rules it sets for names, what it changed from 1992, and the history of names in its annexes._

China’s national standard for ear points, [GB/T 13734-2008, Nomenclature and location of auricular points](https://openstd.samr.gov.cn/bzgk/std/newGbInfo?hcno=D6A125ED4011A9A625F8A3ACE425EE09) (耳穴名称与定位), names 93 points across 10 regions of the outer ear and gives each a code built from the region and the numbered zone the point sits in, such as TF4 or CO14. This page sets out how the standard is organised, the rules it applies to names and locations, what it changed from its 1992 edition, and the history of names it records in its annexes. Where ear acupuncture came from and what trials of it found are on [Ear acupuncture](/wiki/techniques/ear-acupuncture).

## The document

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the Standardization Administration of China issued the standard on 23 April 2008, and it took effect on 1 July 2008. The national standards platform lists it as current. The National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine proposed it, and it was drafted at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine with the auricular diagnosis and treatment committee of the China Association of Acupuncture-Moxibustion (CAAM); its principal drafters are Zhou Liqun and Zhao Baixiao. It replaces [GB/T 13734-1992](https://openstd.samr.gov.cn/bzgk/std/newGbInfo?hcno=25D92DAF760802FD49D0BFF9CAABBB5D), issued in October 1992 and in force from May 1993, which the platform now lists as withdrawn.

The body of the standard defines orientation on the ear and the surface anatomy it uses, with English terms, then lists the points region by region, each with its Chinese name, pinyin, code and location. Four annexes follow: figures (Annex A); the principles for choosing, naming and locating points (Annex B, normative); the landmark lines and points and the division of each region into zones (Annex C, normative); and a review of the literature behind each point (Annex D, informative).

## Regions, zones and points

The standard divides the ear into ten regions and most regions into numbered zones. A zone is an area, and a point is named either for a whole zone or for a place on a zone’s edge or at a junction, so a region can hold more points than zones. The root of the ear has three numbered points and no zones.

| Region | Abbreviation | Zones | Points |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Helix | HX | 12 | 13 |
| Scapha | SF | 6 | 6 |
| Antihelix | AH | 13 | 14 |
| Triangular fossa | TF | 5 | 5 |
| Tragus | TG | 4 | 9 |
| Antitragus | AT | 4 | 8 |
| Concha | CO | 18 | 21 |
| Lobule | LO | 9 | 8 |
| Back of the ear | P | 5 | 6 |
| Root of the ear | R | none | 3 |

Annex C builds the zones from 15 basic landmark lines and four constructed landmark points, labelled A to D, which with the curves between them divide the concha. Each region is then cut into fractions: the scapha into six equal parts from top to bottom, the lobe into a grid of three rows and three columns numbered from the top front, and the concha into 18 zones. Annex B requires the zones to cover the whole surface of the ear, front and back.

## How a code is built

A footnote to the standard’s explanatory section defines the code: capital letters give the English abbreviation of the region, and the number after them is the zone. A lower-case letter places the point within or between zones: i marks a junction of two or more zones, a the front end of a zone, p its posterior edge, l its lower edge and u its upper edge. Each kind appears in the standard:

- HX6,7i, Ear apex, sits where helix zones 6 and 7 meet, and AT1,2,4i, Apex of antitragus, where three antitragus zones meet.
- AH6a, Sympathetic, is at the front end of antihelix zone 6, whose remaining area is Sciatic nerve, AH6.
- TG1u, External ear, TG1p, Apex of tragus, and TG2l, Anterior intertragic notch, sit on the upper, posterior and lower edges of tragus zones.
- SF4,5, Shoulder, covers two whole zones, and LO7,8,9, Tonsil, the bottom row of the lobe.

Two codes break the pattern. The groove on the back of the ear is PS, and the root points are R1 to R3, numbers that name points rather than zones. Because the number is the zone, a code says where a point is and not where it falls in the list: Lung is CO14, Heart CO15 and Trachea CO16, although the standard lists Heart and Trachea before Lung. Eye is LO5 because the centre of the lobe’s grid is zone 5.

A [2016 analysis](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4830725/) by Rong and colleagues, whose corresponding author is Zhou Liqun, credits Oleson and Kroening at the University of California, Los Angeles, with the first scheme that coded every area of the front of the ear by the initials of its anatomical structure and a number, TF1 and TF2 for the first two zones of the triangular fossa. The paper describes the 2008 standard as combining zones, points and lines over the whole front and back of the ear, the same method the World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies (WFAS) adopted for its international standard.

## Rules for names and locations

Annex B sets the rules. A point is included if it has a broad base in practice, is in common clinical use and has, in the standard’s words, good diagnostic or therapeutic effect. Its name must also meet one of four conditions: it is recognised internationally, as Adrenal gland and Sympathetic are; it is found in the traditional literature with its practical value confirmed, as Ear centre and Ear apex are; it names a body part or organ, as Heart and Shoulder do; or it uses the anatomy of the ear itself, as Superior auricular root and Middle triangular fossa do. The annex then lists the names the standard does not use:

- names taken from a disease or symptom;
- names taken from a diagnostic or therapeutic function;
- names of drugs;
- a second name for a point in the same zone as one already adopted;
- names with sex-specific features.

Location is primarily by zone, combined with points where a point is needed, and uses the defined orientation terms, the surface anatomy of the ear and the landmark lines of Annex C.

## What changed from 1992

The standard’s foreword lists the changes. The Chinese title changed from 耳穴名称与部位 to 耳穴名称与定位, replacing buwei (部位, site) with dingwei (定位, location); the platform gives both editions nearly the same English title. The naming and location principles of Annex B are new. The landmark lines and zone divisions moved into a normative annex, and the figures into Annex A. Two points were added on the helix, Anterior ear apex (HX6) and Posterior ear apex (HX7), either side of Ear apex.

The locations of Sympathetic, Endocrine (CO18) and the upper and lower ear roots were revised, division lines were added to the figures for Tonsil, and several anatomical terms were revised. Annex D, the literature review, and the reference list are new. The Rong paper names the gap the helix points filled: the 1992 standard left a few areas without a name, among them the two zones in front of and behind the ear apex.

## The history of the names

Annex D gives each point the names it has carried before, the sources it was compiled from and a short editorial note. Its 44 references run from 1950s reprints of the Tang-dynasty Qianjin yaofang and the Ming Zhenjiu dacheng to Chinese books of 1990 and 1991. One of them is an abridged Chinese translation of Paul Nogier’s ear map by Ye Xiaolin, published in a Shanghai journal in 1958, which Annex D cites throughout as the Nogier translation. Nogier was a physician in Lyon; according to a [2007 history](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2206232/) by Gori and Firenzuoli, he introduced his map of the body on the ear to the Congress of the Mediterranean Society of Acupuncture in February 1956, Gérard Bachmann published it in German in 1957, and a Chinese ear chart close to his was published in 1958. Where its sources disagree, Annex D most often follows CAAM’s 1988 standardisation proposal.

The notes show five kinds of change.

- **Function and disease names retired.** Points once named for what they treated were renamed for where they are, under the Annex B rule. Helix tubercle (HX8) absorbed names that included a blood-pressure-lowering point and Liver yang; Superior triangular fossa (TF1) absorbed another blood-pressure-lowering point; Middle triangular fossa (TF3) absorbed an asthma point, a hepatitis point and a constipation point; and Fengxi (SF1,2i) replaced several urticaria points.
- **Sex-specific names merged.** Uterus and sperm palace, two names for one place, became Internal genitals (TF2). Testis and ovary, placed in today’s AT4 by two older Chinese sources, were folded into Subcortex. Prostate became Angle of superior concha (CO8).
- **Names swapped on the antihelix.** Older sources numbered the spine and the trunk the other way round. The zone the standard calls Hip (AH5) was Knee in the Nogier translation and several Chinese texts. Abdomen (AH8) and Lumbosacral vertebrae (AH9) traded names, as did Chest (AH10) and Thoracic vertebrae (AH11), and Neck (AH12) and Cervical vertebrae (AH13). For the chest pair, the editors note that Nogier’s figure contradicts his own text.
- **Three eyes.** Eye (眼, LO5) is the centre of the lobe, a placement Annex D traces to Nogier’s figure. Eye 1 and Eye 2 (目1, 目2), from a 1960 Chinese report of 1,500 cases, sat in front of and behind the intertragic notch; the standard renamed them Anterior intertragic notch (TG2l) and Posterior intertragic notch (AT1l). An English “eye” in a paper can mean any of the three.
- **Points that depended on the ear.** Nogier’s figure put the pancreas on the left ear and the gallbladder on the right at the same spot, and two Chinese texts say the same; the standard makes one point of the two, Pancreas and gallbladder (CO11), on both ears. Nogier and one Chinese book put Spleen (CO13) on the left ear only, which the editors mark as awaiting verification; the standard places it on both.

The five organ points on the back of the ear, P1 to P5, come from an ear-back diagram in a Qing-dynasty massage text, the Lizheng anmo yaoshu, which the Rong paper also reproduces. The 1988 proposal treated them as points; the 2008 standard defines them as zones, because they were used historically for inspection and massage.

## The international lists

The standard is national, and the attempts at an international list ran alongside it. The Rong paper records that CAAM brought a draft of 90 ear points to a WHO working group in Seoul in 1987, which gave codes to 43, names without codes to 36 and excluded 11. The [report of the WHO working group](https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/60870) that met in Lyon in November 1990, chaired by Raphaël Nogier and addressed by Paul Nogier, adopted 39 points on three criteria (international and common names in use, therapeutic value well proven, location generally accepted) and set aside 36 others.

It coded them with the prefix MA, from micro-system and auricular point, numbered the adopted points in sequence within each area, and split the concha into inferior and superior areas. Its codes do not carry across: MA-AH7 is Cervical spine where GB/T AH7 is Buttock, Shenmen is MA-TF1 rather than TF4, and its one lobe point, MA-LO1, is Eye. The Rong paper calls the Lyon meeting inconclusive, and Chinese work continued through the 1992 and 2008 standards.

According to the Rong paper, the WFAS standard adopted the 2008 method. A [2016 comparison](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eujim.2016.06.011) by Wang and colleagues, with Zhao Baixiao and Zhou Liqun among the authors, set the WFAS points against the European system of Nogier and Bahr: 24 points share a name and a similar location, and 25 areas or points share an anatomical name but correspond to different parts of the body and are given different therapeutic uses.

## Reading a GB/T code on AcuiQ

AcuiQ’s catalogue does not use the standard’s numbering. It numbers ear points under some of the same prefixes, AH, AT, TF and HX, with its own sequence, so a code copied from a paper usually lands on a different point here rather than failing. Shenmen, TF4 in the standard, is [`TF10`](/points/tf10) in the catalogue. The catalogue’s [`TF04`](/points/tf04) is Jiangyadian, the blood-pressure-lowering point, a function name Annex D records as a former name of the standard’s Superior triangular fossa, TF1. [Auricular point code collisions](/wiki/research/codes-are-not-identifiers) measures how often the two numberings are confused in the literature and publishes the crosswalk between the two numberings; [Reading a point code](/wiki/nomenclature/point-codes) explains the catalogue’s prefixes, and the catalogue’s ear points are listed under [auricular points](/meridians/auricular-points).

## What the standard does not settle

The standard fixes names and locations; it does not test them. Annex B’s requirement of good diagnostic or therapeutic effect is a criterion the drafters applied, and Annex D supports each point with books and earlier charts rather than trials. Where the sources disagreed, the editors chose one, and the notes record that choice rather than resolve the disagreement. A paper that cites GB/T 13734-2008 or the WFAS standard can be read point by point against it; one that prints bare codes or English names without naming its chart cannot be read with certainty, and the crosswalk in [Auricular point code collisions](/wiki/research/codes-are-not-identifiers) covers only the codes where AcuiQ’s numbering and the standard’s disagree.

### Sources

1. GB/T 13734-2008, Nomenclature and location of auricular points (耳穴名称与定位), General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and Standardization Administration of China 2008, SAMR national standards platform — https://openstd.samr.gov.cn/bzgk/std/newGbInfo?hcno=D6A125ED4011A9A625F8A3ACE425EE09
2. GB/T 13734-1992, The nomenclature and location of auricular points (耳穴名称与部位), withdrawn, SAMR national standards platform — https://openstd.samr.gov.cn/bzgk/std/newGbInfo?hcno=25D92DAF760802FD49D0BFF9CAABBB5D
3. Rong PJ, Zhao JJ, Wang L, Zhou LQ, Analysis of advantages and disadvantages of the location methods of international auricular acupuncture points, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2016 — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4830725/
4. Gori L, Firenzuoli F, Ear acupuncture in European traditional medicine, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2007 — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2206232/
5. World Health Organization, Report of the Working Group on Auricular Acupuncture Nomenclature, Lyon, France, 28-30 November 1990, WHO/TRM/91.2, Geneva 1991 — https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/60870
6. Wang L, Yang J, Zhao B, Zhou L, Wirz-Ridolfi A, The similarities between the World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies' standards for auricular acupuncture points and the European system of auriculotherapy points according to Nogier and Bahr, European Journal of Integrative Medicine 2016 — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eujim.2016.06.011