A calm reference for a loud category.
Acupoints is a free reference for the 361 WHO-standardized acupoints, written for curious readers and checked against its sources. It is educational reading, not a clinic.
What this is
One quiet home per point
Each of the 361 points has a stable leaf: its code, Chinese name, pinyin, channel and location, the same in every language, and prose that admits uncertainty instead of performing confidence.
Curious readers
The friend who asks which point someone meant. Search results split into clinic pages written to sell and wellness posts written to excite; this is the measured, sourced page in between.
Three layers, in order
- The record. Code, names, channel, location and cautions, from an openly licensed dataset.
- The prose. Context, history and how people explore the point at home. It never overrides the record.
- The foot. Sources, the safety note, and the date the leaf was last reviewed.
Sources and editions
The four classics on the left are the lineage behind the map. Leaves quote the Jiayi Jing, the Lingshu (part of the Inner Classic) and the Bronze Man classic word for word, each line checked against a printed edition; for facts they cite only the sources marked 所據.
- 黃帝內經c. 1st century BCEHuangdi NeijingThe Inner Classic. The channel theory the whole map is drawn on.
- 針灸甲乙經3rd century CEZhenjiu Jiayi JingHuangfu Mi's ordered classic, the first book given wholly to acupuncture points.
- 銅人腧穴針灸圖經1026Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu TujingWang Weiyi's illustrated canon, a Song court standard taught on bronze figures.
- 針灸大成1601Zhenjiu DachengYang Jizhou's Ming compendium. The figures on this site follow its charts.
- 四百年406 years
- 所據 · citedA Manual of Acupuncture2007Deadman, Al-Khafaji & Baker, 2nd ed.Classical framing and point classes for the twenty legacy records.
- 所據 · citedWHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region2008World Health OrganizationNames, codes and the 361 standard locations every leaf follows.
- 所據 · citedaijiu-mpvueTodayMIT LicenseThe open dataset behind each point's identity, category and recorded cautions.
How we check a leaf
Three steps, every leaf, every language.Match the record
Code, names, channel, location and cautions come from the registry and follow the WHO standard. Records are never edited by hand, so a correction is made once and reaches every page.
Screen the words
Every prose module passes the published policy before it builds: no needle instructions, no doses, no promises of a cure, no percentages. A page that fails does not ship.
Sign and date
Each leaf lists its sources, carries its cautions where they cannot be missed, and records the policy it was written under and the day it was last reviewed.
One leaf, three ways to read it
Each language is written on its own and carries the same facts. Switching language keeps you on the same leaf, and your seals carry over.
- English/en/about/British spelling. Chinese terms are defined the first time they appear, then the page carries on in English.You are reading this one
- 繁體中文/zh-hant/about/Traditional glyph forms throughout, with characters pinned to the Taiwan textbook form, such as 大鍾 for KI4.
- 简体中文/zh-cn/about/Simplified forms, with the same sections, the same cautions and the same questions as the other two.
Found a mistake? Tell the people who cut the leaf.
Corrections, source suggestions and plain questions all go to one inbox, read by the people who write the pages. Pointed criticism improves the next printing faster than praise. A small editorial team makes the site; bylines will appear as contributors join.
About the book, in full
Acupoints.com describes itself here: why a calm reference for the 361 standardized acupoints was worth building, how each page is sourced, what the editors claim and deliberately decline to, and how to use the site safely as self-care background.
A Calm Reference for a Loud Category
Search for almost any acupressure topic and the results split into two camps: clinic pages written to convert, and wellness posts written to excite. Between them sits very little a curious reader can trust to be measured, sourced, and calm. Acupoints.com began as the page we wanted to send friends when they asked which point someone meant — a single quiet reference where each of the 361 WHO-standardized acupoints has a stable home, a consistent identity, and prose that admits uncertainty instead of performing confidence.
The site is free to read and needs no account. Its foundations are deliberately unglamorous: a registry holds every point’s code, Chinese name, pinyin, characters, meridian, anatomical location, recorded actions, and dataset cautions, and presents them identically everywhere. The editorial layer you are reading adds prose only — context, history, and practical orientation — and never overrides those identity facts. If the two ever disagreed, the registry would win.
How the Pages Are Built
Every page stands on three tiers of sourcing. The catalogue entries are compiled from an openly licensed dataset, aijiu-mpvue (MIT License), with in-house English wording that follows the nomenclature conventions of the WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008). An older set of twenty editorial records is reviewed against that WHO standard and against A Manual of Acupuncture (Deadman, Al-Khafaji & Baker, second edition, 2007). The newest layer — pages like this one — is written in-house under a content policy the site publishes alongside the writing.
Standing habits follow from that structure. Each page lists its sources, and where a specific claim leans on one of them, the page says so inline. Contraindications recorded in the source data are carried onto the page prominently rather than buried, and the safety note at the foot of every article restates the universal limits of self-care. The catalogue records themselves are never edited by hand, so a correction happens once, in the record, and propagates everywhere.
What We Claim, and What We Decline To
Most assertions here wear traditional-use framing: a point is described as traditionally used for a purpose, or classically associated with a season, an emotion, or an element. Classical ideas arrive attributed generally — “classical texts describe…” — and are never dressed up as direct quotation. You will not find miracle promises, superiority rankings, percentages, or assured outcomes in these editorial pages. The tradition is interesting enough without embellishment, and readers deserve prose that respects their judgement.
Where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and the literature itself is candid about uneven study quality. That is the whole claim, and it is deliberately small. What self-acupressure reliably offers is slower breathing, a few minutes of quiet attention, and a low-cost ritual some people find pleasant — none of which competes with medical assessment, and none of which is offered as a substitute for it.
Reading Your First Point Page
A newcomer usually arrives at a point page from a search result, so the page settles the essentials before any storytelling: the alphanumeric code, the Chinese name with its pinyin and characters, the parent meridian, and the anatomical location — all supplied by the registry and identical in both languages. Below that sit the recorded indications, any dataset cautions, and only then the editorial prose: the point’s classical roles, its neighbours along the channel, and gentle ways people explore it at home.
Orientation helps. The channels were drawn as continuous lines, and every point belongs somewhere on one. The lung channel, for instance, sweeps from zhongfu high on the chest down the inner arm to shaoshang beside the thumbnail — eleven catalogued points from end to end. Following a channel in order, rather than meeting points at random, is the easiest way to watch the tradition’s geography assemble itself — and the meridian overview pages on this site are built for exactly that kind of unhurried tour.
Safety Before Everything
Self-acupressure, as this site treats it, means fingers and palms only — never needles — and pressure that stays comfortable rather than firm. The recurring rules are few on purpose: avoid broken, inflamed, or numbed skin; stop at once if anything sharp, electric, or radiating appears; and treat pregnancy, an ongoing medical condition, or medication that affects bleeding as reasons to ask a qualified practitioner first. Dataset cautions are echoed on the relevant pages so they cannot scroll past unnoticed.
The limits deserve stating plainly too. Self-care is background comfort, not diagnosis, and a symptom that persists, worsens, or frightens you has earned professional attention whatever the internet suggests. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner — Western medicine or East Asian medicine, whichever suits the complaint.
Voice, Language, and Contact
The house voice is plain and grounded: no mystique, no exclamation marks doing the work of evidence, and Chinese terms defined on first use so a newcomer is never locked out. Every editorial module is written twice — once in English and once in Chinese, authored in Traditional characters with the Simplified edition derived from them — with matching structure, so neither language is a poor cousin. Spelling follows British conventions throughout, and dates, sources, and cautions are formatted the same way on every page.
Behind the site is a small editorial team; individual bylines will appear as contributors join. Corrections, source suggestions, and ordinary reader questions are welcome at editorial@acupoints.com — the inbox is read by the people who write the pages, and pointed criticism improves the next revision faster than praise does.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- Is Acupoints.com free to use?
- Yes. Every page is readable without an account, and the licensed dataset underneath is itself openly available. Nothing sits behind a subscription, and both language versions share the same openness. If a page helps you understand one point a little better, it has done its job.
- Is this site medical advice?
- No. Acupoints.com is an educational reference about a traditional practice — not a clinic, and not a substitute for one. The pages explain locations, history, and traditional associations, and they consistently hand persistent symptoms to licensed practitioners. Read it the way you would read a good encyclopaedia entry: background that prepares you for a conversation, not a replacement for it.
- Where does the information come from?
- From three tiers: catalogue data compiled from an openly licensed dataset; legacy editorial records reviewed against the WHO standard and A Manual of Acupuncture; and a newer editorial layer written in-house under a published content policy. Every page lists its own sources, so you can walk upstream from any statement to the material behind it.
- Can acupressure help my condition?
- That is not a promise this site will make. Self-applied pressure is best held as a comfort practice — a way to slow down, breathe deliberately, and pay attention to the body — not as therapy. Anything ongoing or worrying calls for a qualified clinician’s assessment; an East Asian medicine practitioner can be involved alongside conventional care, as a complement rather than a replacement.
- Why do some points have long articles and others do not?
- Because the editorial layer grows steadily outward. The registry layer — names, locations, recorded actions, cautions — already covers all 361 points, while authored prose reaches further across the catalogue with each passing month. A short page is complete rather than neglected: it has not yet received its essay, and the identity facts on it are already the authoritative ones.
- Why is everything written in two languages?
- Because the tradition being described took shape in the Chinese-speaking world, and because readers meet it in both languages. Each editorial module carries an English and a Chinese arm with matching sections and questions. The arms are authored separately, so each reads naturally while carrying the same facts, and core vocabulary is translated consistently across the site so the two can be read side by side.
Sources
- 01WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008) — nomenclature conventions followed across the site’s point names and codes.
- 02aijiu-mpvue (MIT License), licensed dataset — point identities, categories, and recorded cautions underlying the catalogue pages.
- 03A Manual of Acupuncture (Deadman, Al-Khafaji & Baker) — classical framing and point classes consulted for the legacy editorial records.
Last reviewed