Ear Piercing Chart: Every Placement, Numbered

Ear Piercing Chart: Every Placement, Numbered
The short answerThirteen placements, numbered on the diagram below. One of them is soft tissue and heals in weeks; the other twelve are cartilage and heal in months. That single split is the only healing distinction any health authority actually publishes — 6 to 8 weeks for the lobe, 3 to 12 months for cartilage — and it matters more than which cartilage spot you pick.
Ear piercing chart: thirteen placements numbered on a diagram of a right ear A line diagram of a right ear with numbered markers. 1 lobe. 2 upper lobe. 3 helix on the upper outer rim. 4 forward helix. 5 flat. 6 rook. 7 daith. 8 tragus. 9 anti-tragus. 10 inner conch. 11 outer conch. 12 snug. An industrial is a single barbell joining 4 and 3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

A right ear. A left ear is the mirror image — the numbers do not change.

The chart, in words

# Placement Where it sits Typical healing Gauge What fits initially
1 Lobe The soft fleshy part at the bottom, below where the cartilage ends. Soft tissue 6–8 weeks 20G–18G Flat back stud
2 Upper lobe Higher on the same fleshy area — a second or third hole. Still soft tissue 6–8 weeks 20G–18G Flat back stud
3 Helix The upper outer rim, the curved edge of the ear. Cartilage 6–12 months 16G Flat back stud; hoop once healed
4 Forward helix Where that same rim curls forward, above the tragus. Cartilage 6–12 months 16G Flat back stud, 6mm
5 Flat The flat panel of cartilage between the rim and the inner ridge. Cartilage 6–12 months 16G Flat back stud, 6–8mm
6 Rook The ridge inside the upper ear. Cartilage — anatomy-dependent 6–12 months 16G Curved barbell, 8–10mm
7 Daith The innermost fold, just above the ear canal. Cartilage — anatomy-dependent 6–12 months 16G Hinged clicker, 8mm
8 Tragus The small flap in front of the ear canal. Cartilage 6–12 months 16G Low-profile flat back stud, 5–6mm
9 Anti-tragus The bump opposite the tragus, just above the lobe. Cartilage — anatomy-dependent 6–12 months 16G Curved barbell or small stud
10 Conch, inner The large bowl in the middle of the ear, below the ridge that crosses it. Cartilage 6–12 months 16G, sometimes 14G Flat back stud, 8mm
11 Conch, outer The upper part of the same bowl, above that ridge. Cartilage 6–12 months 16G Flat back stud; hoop 10–12mm once healed
12 Snug The horizontal ridge running along the inside of the outer rim. Cartilage — the most anatomy-dependent of all 6–12 months 16G Curved barbell, 8mm
13 Industrial Not a spot — one straight barbell joining 4 and 3. Two cartilage wounds on one rigid bar 9–12 months 14G Straight barbell, 32–38mm

Healing figures per placement are industry convention. The documented range for cartilage is 3 to 12 months — see below.

The two healing numbers that are actually documented

Most ear charts give a different healing time for every placement — rook nine months, helix six, snug fourteen. Those numbers come from retailers and studios, not from anyone who measured.

What health authorities publish is a two-way split, and they agree with each other closely:

Source Lobe Cartilage
Kaiser Permanente 6–8 weeks 3–12 months
Cleveland Clinic About 6–8 weeks Up to six months or a year
National Environmental Health Association Typically 6–8 weeks Six months to one year
Association of Professional Piercers — Six months or longer

The only healing distinction published by a health authority

The reason is anatomy, and it is well established. Cartilage has very little blood supply of its own. A 2005 review in American Family Physician attributes poor healing and serious infection in the upper ear to the avascular nature of auricular cartilage; Cleveland Clinic and UC Berkeley's health service say the same thing in plainer words. Less blood means slower repair and less immune traffic reaching the site.

The per-placement figures in the chart above are industry convention, and we have given them because they are what you will be quoted in a studio. They all sit inside the documented 3-to-12-month cartilage range. Treat the range as the fact and the individual number as a working estimate.

What this chart deliberately does not show

A pain ranking

Every other ear chart has one. We went looking for the data behind them and there is none. No published study measures piercing pain by anatomical site — not one. The best-presented chart we found claims to rank placements “by real data” and, when opened, cites aggregated feedback from its own customers, unpublished and unverifiable.

What is real is that the outer ear's sensation is split across several different nerves — the auriculotemporal, the great auricular, the lesser occipital and the auricular branch of the vagus — which is a genuine reason different spots feel different. It is not a reason to put a number from one to ten next to each one.

A promise about your anatomy

Four of the thirteen — rook, daith, anti-tragus and snug, plus the industrial — need a particular ridge of cartilage to be present and well defined. Piercers are unanimous on this, though no authority publishes it, so treat it as professional consensus rather than a documented finding. A piercer who tells you your ear will not take a snug is doing the job properly, not upselling you.

Anything about the metal

Deliberately. Gauge tells you the thickness of the bar; it tells you nothing about what the bar is made of, and that is the part that decides whether a healing piercing is comfortable. There is a separate guide to materials for that.

Shop the pieces

For the numbers on this chart

Flat back studs in implant-grade ASTM F136 titanium — the shape that suits most of the placements above, in the gauge they are usually pierced at.

Shop all titanium flat back studs →

Common questions

How many ear piercing placements are there?
Thirteen are named on this chart, which covers the ones people actually ask for. One of them, the industrial, is not a spot at all — it is a single barbell joining two separate cartilage holes. Studios name more combinations than this, but they are arrangements of the same anatomy rather than new locations.
Is this chart of a left ear or a right ear?
A right ear. A left ear is its mirror image and the numbering does not change — the tragus is still the flap in front of the canal, the helix is still the outer rim.
Which number on the chart heals fastest?
Number 1, the lobe, and number 2, the upper lobe. Both are soft tissue and heal in roughly 6 to 8 weeks. Everything else on the chart is cartilage, which health authorities put at 3 to 12 months. There is no published evidence that any one cartilage placement heals faster than another.
Which ear piercings can anyone get?
The lobe, helix, forward helix, flat, tragus and conch suit most ears. Rook, daith, anti-tragus, snug and the industrial each need a specific ridge of cartilage to be present and well defined, so a piercer may tell you your anatomy does not suit one. That is a normal and correct answer, not a sales tactic.
Why does this chart not rank pain?
Because no published study measures piercing pain by site. Every pain chart online is built from anecdote, including the ones that describe themselves as data-driven. The ear's sensation is genuinely split across several nerves, which is why placements feel different, but that does not produce a number from one to ten.
What gauge is each ear piercing?
As a working rule: 20G to 18G for the lobe, 16G for most cartilage placements, and 14G for an industrial. These are industry conventions rather than published standards — the Association of Professional Piercers specifies materials and threading for initial jewelry but does not publish a gauge.
What is the difference between a flat and an outer conch?
They overlap, and different studios draw the line in different places. On this chart, 5 is the flat panel of cartilage between the outer rim and the inner ridge, and 11 is the upper part of the bowl itself. If a studio uses the terms differently, point at the spot rather than naming it.
Is auricle a real ear piercing placement?
It is a jargon term, and a confusing one. In anatomy the auricle is the entire external ear. In piercing shorthand it means one spot on the outer rim between the helix above and the lobe below. We have left it off this chart for that reason; if someone offers you an auricle piercing, ask them to point.
Can I get more than one of these at the same time?
Piercers commonly do, but each one is a separate cartilage wound with its own months-long healing, and both ears cannot be slept on at once. The practical limit is usually how you sleep rather than how much your ear can take.
Does the chart tell me what size jewelry to buy?
It gives the gauge and the usual initial jewelry type, which is enough to avoid an obvious mismatch. It does not give you your post length, because that depends on your own tissue and on how much swelling has gone down. Measure the piece you are already wearing rather than guessing.
Sources
Keep reading What each placement actually takes Healing times in detail Gauge and size guide Stud or hoop, by placement Hoop diameter by placement Gun vs needle: the evidence

Healing ranges and sources on this page were read on 29 September 2026. The per-placement figures are industry convention; the lobe-versus-cartilage split is the part that is documented. This is a reference chart, not medical advice — your piercer has seen your ear and we have not.