This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Chinese Sky gathers the three enclosures that divided the traditional Chinese sky into a working imperial court, plus the star group that kept its calendar, four pieces of one coherent scheme rather than four unrelated figures.
The Purple Forbidden Enclosure is the innermost of the three, the circumpolar palace of the celestial emperor wrapped around the north pole; its stars never set, as the emperor never leaves his throne, and Beijing's Purple Forbidden City takes its name directly from it. The Supreme Palace Enclosure sits second, the court of celestial government standing south of the Purple Forbidden Enclosure in the region the Western sky assigns to Virgo, Leo and Coma Berenices, its stars named for ministers, counsellors and thrones. The Heavenly Market Enclosure is third, a celestial marketplace spread across Ophiuchus, Serpens and Hercules, its stars carrying the names of market offices and shops and its enclosing walls named for the feudal states of the Zhou world.
Beidou, the Northern Dipper, is the instrument that keeps this court in season rather than a fourth enclosure: Han sources make it the chariot of the celestial sovereign, its handle swinging around the pole through the year to mark the seasons, and Daoist practice addresses it directly in rites for long life. Together the four read the sky as a functioning bureaucracy in session around the pole, an administration rather than a set of scattered myths.