中都 Zhongdu
“Central Capital” · LV6
Foot Jueyin · 6 of 14 · xi-cleft
Where. Seven thumb-widths above the inner anklebone, in the middle of the flat inner face of the shin bone.
For. Low belly pain; pain under the ribs; weak legs.
Press. Light fingertip pressure on the flat of the bone, about a minute each leg.
中都二穴，一名中郄，在內踝上七寸按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Zhongdu Sits on the Inner Shin
The dataset locates LV6 on the medial aspect of the lower leg — the inner face — seven cun above the tip of the medial malleolus, at the middle of the medial surface of the tibia. Taken landmark by landmark: the medial malleolus is the bony prominence on the inside of the ankle, and its tip is the lowest point of that prominence; seven cun measures straight up the shin from there. A cun is the proportional body-measure of Chinese point-location, taken from the person being examined rather than from a ruler; the familiar thumb-width convention makes one cun roughly the width of your own thumb, so the recorded seven cun amounts to a patient stack of seven thumb-widths climbing the inner shin. Because the measure is proportional, absolute distances differ from body to body — the point lives in your coordinates, not in centimetres. One clause of the address deserves special care: at the middle of the medial surface of the tibia. The shinbone shows a palpating hand three faces — the sharp ridge toward the front, the flat inner face, and the rounded back where muscle gathers. The recorded address takes the centre of the flat inner face, clear of both the front ridge and the soft strip behind.
Beneath the fingertips the terrain is simple and honest. Skin, then a thin covering of fascia, then the broad flat bone of the tibia’s inner face; deeper still, toward the back of the leg, lie the slender muscles that work the toes and ankle. Nothing hollow and nothing vulnerable waits nearby — chest, throat, and abdominal organs all stand far from this quiet stretch of leg. The licensed dataset records no specific caution for this point, and the geography supports their calm: this is bone-and-muscle country, the friendliest sort of ground a self-care page can walk. Absence of a recorded caution is worth stating plainly, and equally worth not overstating — it licenses light surface contact, never force, and every other boundary on this page still applies. One practical note follows from the bone itself: the inner face sits close beneath the skin, so searching fingers achieve more resting on the flat than boring inward.
Channel context explains why this quiet slope carries weight. The registry reads the liver meridian as rising from the big toe up the inner leg to the ribs — one sustained climb of fourteen stations — and the shin portion of that climb is unusually well signposted. Lígōu (LV5) stands five cun above the tip of the medial malleolus on the very same flat face of the tibia; Zhongdu continues two thumb-widths higher at seven; Xīguān (LV7) completes the ascent beside the inner knee. Every one of those addresses comes from the same licensed records. In the traditional frame the liver system was said to keep qi and blood moving smoothly, and the registry’s own summary ties the meridian to easing stagnation and steadying women’s cycles — themes that dominate the point’s recorded portfolio and give the “capital” imagery below its work to do.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit on a firm chair with the foot flat and the calf released, or stretch the leg out supported at the heel — whichever lets the lower-leg muscles soften first. Find the bony prominence on the inside of the ankle and trace it down to its pointed tip. From that tip, walk your thumb straight up the flat inner face of the shinbone, heel of one thumb meeting tip of the next: five stacked widths bring you to the height where Lígōu (LV5) lives, and two further widths complete the recorded seven. At the seventh, let your fingertips settle on the middle of the bone’s inner face — off the sharp ridge at the front, off the softer strip behind, square on the centre of the flat. That plateau, seven thumb-widths up the inner shin, is the location the dataset describes.
A pair of quiet checks helps before any pressing begins. First, compare sides: locate the mirror-image spot on the other leg and touch both feather-light; most people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true point and little sensation a thumb-width away. Second, audit the address in three directions at once — height, face, and edge. Height: the spot should sit unmistakably higher than LV5’s level, about two thumb-widths beyond it, and clearly below the knee. Face: the finger rests on flat bone, not in a groove or over a muscle belly. Edge: the sharp front ridge of the shinbone stays a deliberate finger-width away, because that ridge is genuinely tender, and mistaking its soreness for a found point is a classic error.
The recurring mistakes are easy to name. Counting down from the knee instead of up from the ankle reverses every measurement — always begin at the malleolus tip, the anchor the record itself names. Stopping at five widths lands on Lígōu’s height, the commonest slip on this shared face; if your spot feels low, recount slowly rather than nudging upward bit by bit. Sliding onto the front ridge trades the true address for a bruise. And wandering into the soft strip behind the bone leaves the recorded middle-of-the-face position. When in doubt, return to the ankle tip, breathe out, and measure the whole journey again in slow thumb-widths — patience reproduces an address better than memory does.
Reading the Name: Central Capital
The two characters sketch the point in miniature. Zhōng 中 means central or middle — the very word the dataset’s location borrows when it sets the point at the middle of the medial surface. Dū 都 pictures a capital city: the place where roads converge, business concentrates, and what is scattered across a realm gathers to be managed. Read together, Zhongdu is the central gathering-place — a capital set partway up the channel’s climb. Classical commentators took the name that way, and the reading fits the point’s official rank with unusual neatness: tradition assigns each channel a single xi-cleft point, and the dataset records LV6 in precisely that class for the liver channel. A cleft station was described as the place where a channel’s qi gathers and sinks deepest — and gathering is exactly what a capital is for.
The xi-cleft office shaped how classical practice reached for such stations. Each channel keeps exactly one; the habit of the literature was to turn to them when trouble arrived suddenly and sharply — abrupt bleeding, gripping pain — reserving the deep-collecting stations for acute moments. LV6 holds that office for the liver channel, whose recorded portfolio leans accordingly: the bleeding-related entries in its list carry just the sudden, urgent flavour the class predicts. None of this asserts physiology. These are traditional frameworks for understanding why one small patch of shinbone collected so much classical attention — offered the way a map legend explains old symbols, not as claims about what pressing the spot accomplishes.
Pinyin renders the name Zhōngdū. Zhōng carries the first tone — a level, sustained note held steadily high, like a drone beneath a melody. Dū answers in kind: it too takes the first tone in this name, the reading that means a capital or metropolis. The character leads a double life in everyday speech — dōu, also first-toned, meaning “all” or “both” — so learners sometimes hesitate between the two, but they share the same flat pitch and differ only in sense; the point name follows the capital. The hanzi pair 中都 stays compact enough to memorise at a glance, and like the gates, wells, and courtyards scattered through the point canon, the civic metaphor does real work: a capital is consequential by definition — never scenery along the route, always a seat of administration. Names in this tradition are compressed instructions for attention.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications number seven: hernia, lower abdominal pain, uterine bleeding, lochia retention after childbirth, hypochondriac pain, abdominal distension, and weakness of the lower limb. Grouped, they tell one coherent story. Two speak directly to women’s health: uterine bleeding running beyond its proper course, and retained lochia — the after-birth flow that tradition expected to clear in the days following delivery. Two share the classical map of the lower belly: hernia, and lower abdominal pain. Two concern the trunk: hypochondriac pain along the rib-side, and abdominal distension, the belly blown full and unmoving. One concerns the road itself: weakness of the lower limb, natural for a station planted in the very leg the channel walks.
The traditional reasoning ran roughly as follows, reconstructed from the general logic of the literature rather than any single citation. The registry’s own summary ties the liver meridian to soothing stagnation and steadying women’s cycles, and classical teaching gave the liver system a stewardship over the storage and movement of blood — so bleeding irregularities, cycle complaints, and the aftermath of childbirth were approached along this pathway, with the channel’s gathering station prominent in the discussion. Hernia and lower abdominal pain belonged to the lower-belly territory the channel descends toward; hypochondriac pain answered to the route’s destination at the ribs; distension was read as qi failing to move freely; and the leg entry follows from simple geography — the point stands in the limb it addresses. The xi-cleft class explains the list’s flavour: acute, sharp presentations at its head. Each step is traditional inference, documented for understanding.
Honesty draws bright lines around several of these entries. Bleeding that is unusually heavy or prolonged, bleeding between periods or after menopause, and anything left unsettled after childbirth deserve prompt professional assessment — they are questions for a clinician, not discomforts to press away. A hernia bulge that hardens, turns painful, or cannot be gently settled back is an emergency in the making: seek urgent medical care, never a massage. Persistent abdominal distension and rib-side pain warrant proper investigation too. And where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, published reviews describe small, setting-dependent effects rather than dependable ones, with studies pinned to any single point remaining scarce. Hold the tradition as history and craft; hold the referral lines as fixed.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated, spine tall but unforced, the lower leg supported and loose. Rest the pads of your index and middle fingers — pads, never tips — on the flat middle of the bone’s inner face. Begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths, then add small, unhurried circles, letting the skin glide rather than the fingers grind. Because bone waits directly beneath, aim lighter here than you would on a fleshy thigh: pleasant dullness or mild warmth is the target sensation, and any sharpness means withdrawing at once. A workable home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, timed where possible to slow exhales. Swap hands, find the mirror spot, and give the other leg its equal share.
Quality outranks duration, and on bone-faced points it outranks it decisively. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact fits the wellness register this page practises; leaning harder buys nothing and risks bruising tissue that cannot yield. Warm cold hands before starting, because chilled fingers press clumsily and chilled muscle guards itself. Choose a quiet corner over a screen, and consider anchoring the session to a habit you already keep — after the morning wash-up, or while the evening tea steeps — because in self-care traditions consistency is the virtue that compounds. A couple of calm minutes most days will outrun a single heroic sitting, and the ritual itself repays half the benefit.
Treat the exercise as a short appointment with yourself rather than a treatment session. Across a few weeks you may notice the area feeling less guarded, the legs feeling easier by evening, or simply that you kept a small promise daily. All of that sits within the honest scope of self-acupressure. What sits outside it is escalation — pressing longer, harder, or deeper to force an outcome, particularly anywhere near an unexplained lump or a healing injury. When curiosity pulls that way, return to gentleness or rest the practice for a day. The point will wait; your goodwill toward your own legs is the thing worth keeping intact.
Cautions and Safe Practice
Start with what the record says, because it is genuinely reassuring: the licensed dataset records no specific caution for LV6. Nothing in this entry’s source material warns against the site, and the anatomy agrees — flat bone and thin muscle, far from chest, throat, and abdominal organs. Yet absence of a recorded caution is not permission to push. Every rule that governs gentle self-care everywhere applies here undiluted: surface work, finger pads, healthy skin, and a person simply tending their own body — nothing more elaborate than that, and nothing less careful either.
The universal boundaries, spelled out plainly. Stop at once on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation, and do not resume that day. Skip the point over broken, irritated, or infected skin, and pause during feverish illness. After a lower-leg injury or surgery, wait until ordinary movement feels comfortable before returning to the practice. Pregnant readers should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice — and prudence runs doubly deep here, because the point’s traditional portfolio centres on bleeding and childbirth matters; anyone who is pregnant, recently delivered, living with a diagnosed bleeding condition, or taking prescribed medication that thins the blood, does best to seek individual guidance before regular pressure of any kind.
And the standing rule rises over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care — comfort for a body, never diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical attention, not a longer pressing session, for bleeding that is unusually heavy or prolonged, bleeding between periods or after menopause, postpartum bleeding that alarms you, a hernia bulge that hardens, worsens, or refuses to settle back, abdominal pain or swelling that keeps building, or anything else that frightens you. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner — Western medicine or East Asian medicine, whichever suits the complaint. What the Central Capital offers most people is quieter than miracles: a few honest minutes of attention for the legs that carry you, spent kindly and spent safely.
Zhongdu — the Central Capital — stands partway up the inner face of the shinbone, seven cun above the tip of the inner ankle bone. Tradition gives it a double office: gathering station of the liver channel, and a classical address for troubles of the lower abdomen and a woman’s cycle. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently and safely.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Zhongdu if I have never measured a cun in my life?
- Use the inner ankle bone as the whole map. Trace the prominence on the inside of the ankle down to its pointed tip, then walk your thumb straight up the flat inner face of the shinbone, stacking thumb-widths heel to tip. Five widths mark the height of Lígōu (LV5); two more complete the recorded seven, and there your fingertips rest on the middle of the bone’s inner face. The thumb-stack simply translates the dataset’s seven-cun address into your own body’s units.
- How safe is it to press Zhongdu on my own?
- For healthy adults, gentle fingertip contact held on the surface is reasonable self-care, and the licensed dataset records no specific caution for this site — flat bone and thin muscle, far from the vulnerable spaces that make chest and neck points demanding. Bone-close terrain argues for a light hand rather than a firm one: keep pressure modest, stay centred on the flat face away from the sharp front ridge, stop on sharp sensation, and skip the area over broken skin, during fever, or soon after a leg injury.
- What did classical practice use Zhongdu for?
- The traditional record lists seven indications: hernia, lower abdominal pain, uterine bleeding, lochia retention after childbirth, hypochondriac pain, abdominal distension, and weakness of the lower limb. Tradition classes the point as the liver channel’s xi-cleft — the station where channel qi gathers deepest — which is why sudden, sharp presentations such as acute bleeding episodes stand at the head of its historic portfolio. Those are traditional frameworks preserved for cultural context, not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why would a capital sit on a shinbone?
- Because point names map the body onto landscape and civic life alike. The inner leg belongs to the channel’s long climb, and a du — a capital, a gathering-place — marks where the tradition expected a channel’s business to concentrate; paired with zhong, central, the name reads as the realm’s meeting-point partway up the route. Set the xi-cleft classification beside it and the two images agree: a collecting station, not a way-station. Names in this canon are compressed instructions for attention.
- Can pressing Zhongdu take the place of seeing a doctor about bleeding or pelvic pain?
- No. Self-acupressure is comfort practice, not diagnosis, and bleeding changes and pelvic pain deserve real answers: unusually heavy or prolonged bleeding, bleeding between periods or after menopause, unresolved postpartum symptoms, or a hernia bulge that hardens or becomes painful all need professional assessment promptly. Picture the division honestly: daily self-care is the brushing, clinical medicine is the dentistry — related habits, different offices, and neither substitutes for the other.
Sources
- 01WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008), World Health Organization — nomenclature conventions.
- 02A Manual of Acupuncture, Peter Deadman, Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker — point-name tradition, xi-cleft theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for LV6 Zhongdu — location, xi-cleft point class, actions, and indication record.
Last reviewed
牌記This leaf, for machines
Old books ended with a colophon saying who printed them. Every leaf here carries the same facts as structured data for agents and search, with no layout in the way.
- GET /en/points/lv6/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/lv6/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/lv6/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "LV6",
"name": {
"en": "Zhongdu",
"gloss": "Central Capital",
"zh-Hant": "中都",
"zh-Hans": "中都"
},
"channel": {
"id": "LV",
"order": 6,
"of": 14
},
"location": {
"text": "Seven thumb-widths above the inner anklebone, in the middle of the flat inner face of the shin bone."
},
"for": [
"low belly pain",
"pain under the ribs",
"weak legs"
],
"press": {
"text": "Light fingertip pressure on the flat of the bone, about a minute each leg.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu Tujing, book 5",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/lv6",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}