How Many Tarot Cards Are There? Understanding the 78 Tarot Cards

If you are new to Tarot, one of the first questions you may have is surprisingly simple:

How many Tarot cards are there?

A standard Tarot deck contains 78 cards.

These 78 cards are divided into two main sections:

• 22 Major Arcana cards

• 56 Minor Arcana cards

Together, they form the traditional Tarot deck used for readings, study, and divination.

But why are there exactly 78 cards? And what is the difference between the Major and Minor Arcana?

Let's take a closer look at how the Tarot deck is organized.

The 78 Tarot Cards at a Glance

The easiest way to understand a Tarot deck is to divide it into its two major parts.

The structure is actually quite logical once you see it this way.

The Major Arcana contains the cards numbered from 0 to 21, beginning with The Fool and ending with The World.

The Minor Arcana consists of four suits, with 14 cards in each suit.

So:

22 + (14 × 4) = 78

That's the basic mathematical structure of a traditional Tarot deck.

What Are the 22 Major Arcana Cards?

The Major Arcana is made up of 22 cards, traditionally numbered from 0 to XXI.

The sequence begins with The Fool (0) and ends with The World (XXI).

The Major Arcana cards are generally associated with larger themes and important stages of human experience.

The 22 cards are:

1. The Fool

2. The Magician

3. The High Priestess

4. The Empress

5. The Emperor

6. The Hierophant

7. The Lovers

8. The Chariot

9. Strength

10. The Hermit

11. Wheel of Fortune

12. Justice

13. The Hanged Man

14. Death

15. Temperance

16. The Devil

17. The Tower

18. The Star

19. The Moon

20. The Sun

21. Judgement

22. The World

There is one small detail worth mentioning: The Fool is normally numbered 0, while The World is numbered XXI. Therefore, the numerical sequence technically runs from 0 through 21.

Why Is the Major Arcana Important?

The Major Arcana is often used to explore significant developments rather than only small day-to-day events.

For example:

The Tower may point toward sudden disruption or the collapse of an existing structure.

The Lovers can relate to relationships, but may also concern choices, values, and personal alignment.

The Hermit often speaks to introspection, solitude, and searching for deeper understanding.

The World is associated with completion, integration, and the end of a major cycle.

This doesn't mean that a Major Arcana card always predicts a dramatic event.

Its meaning depends on the question, surrounding cards, position in the spread, and the particular Tarot tradition being used.

What Are the 56 Minor Arcana Cards?

The remaining 56 cards make up the Minor Arcana.

They are divided into four suits:

• Wands

• Cups

• Swords

• Pentacles

Each suit contains 14 cards.

That gives us:

14 cards × 4 suits = 56 cards

The structure of each suit is:

• Ace

• Two

• Three

• Four

• Five

• Six

• Seven

• Eight

• Nine

• Ten

• Page

• Knight

• Queen

• King

The Ace through Ten are commonly called the pip cards, while Page, Knight, Queen, and King are known as Court Cards.

The Four Tarot Suits

Each suit tends to emphasize a different area of experience.

Wands

Wands are commonly associated with energy, creativity, ambition, action, and inspiration.

They often appear in readings involving projects, personal motivation, career ambitions, or the desire to move forward.

For example, the Ace of Wands can represent a new spark of enthusiasm, an idea, or the beginning of an exciting project.

Cups

Cups are traditionally connected with emotions, relationships, intuition, affection, and inner experiences.

Because of this, Cups frequently appear in questions about love and relationships.

The Two of Cups, for instance, is often associated with connection, partnership, and mutual attraction.

Swords

Swords are associated with thought, communication, decisions, conflict, and mental challenges.

They can represent the way we think about a situation as well as difficulties that arise through communication or competing ideas.

The Ace of Swords, for example, can suggest clarity, truth, a new understanding, or an important decision.

Pentacles

Pentacles are commonly connected with the material world, including money, work, resources, health, possessions, and practical matters.

The Ace of Pentacles may indicate a new practical opportunity, such as a financial possibility, job opportunity, or foundation for future growth.

Why Are There 14 Cards in Each Suit?

The 14-card structure is one of the defining features of the traditional Tarot deck.

Each suit contains:

10 numbered cards + 4 Court Cards = 14 cards

And because there are four suits:

4 × 14 = 56 Minor Arcana cards

Then:

56 Minor Arcana + 22 Major Arcana = 78 cards

This structure is shared by many of the most familiar Tarot traditions, including the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot and decks based on similar systems.

What Do the Numbers in Tarot Mean?

The numbered Minor Arcana cards aren't simply a collection of unrelated cards.

The numbers themselves can provide another layer of interpretation.

A simplified way to look at the progression is:

Ace — beginning or potential

Two — duality, balance, or choice

Three — development and expansion

Four — stability and structure

Five — change, tension, or challenge

Six — movement, harmony, or adjustment

Seven — testing, reflection, or strategy

Eight — movement, structure, or development

Nine — culmination and personal experience

Ten — completion or the end of a cycle

The exact meaning changes depending on the suit.

For example, the Five of Cups and the Five of Pentacles both contain the number five, but their meanings are very different because Cups and Pentacles deal with different aspects of life.

This is one of the reasons learning Tarot is more useful than simply memorizing 78 individual definitions.

What Are the Court Cards?

Each suit has four Court Cards:

Page, Knight, Queen, and King.

These cards can represent people, personalities, approaches, stages of development, or particular kinds of energy.

For example, a Page of Cups might suggest emotional openness, curiosity, or the beginning of a new emotional experience.

A Queen of Cups may represent emotional maturity, empathy, intuition, and sensitivity.

A King of Swords can suggest intellectual authority, clear judgment, logic, and disciplined thinking.

Court Cards can be challenging for beginners because they don't always represent literal people.

Their interpretation depends heavily on the question and surrounding cards.

Are All Tarot Decks 78 Cards?

No.

This is an important distinction.

When people say "a Tarot deck has 78 cards," they are referring to the standard Tarot structure.

However, modern Tarot creators sometimes change the traditional structure.

Some decks may:

• Add extra cards

• Remove certain cards

• Rename cards

• Change the number of cards in a suit

• Create entirely new systems inspired by Tarot

There are also historical Tarot decks with structures that differ from the modern 78-card format.

So 78 cards is the traditional standard, not an absolute rule for every deck that uses the word Tarot.

What About Oracle Cards?

This is where beginners sometimes get confused.

Tarot and Oracle cards are not the same system.

A traditional Tarot deck follows a recognizable structure of 78 cards, divided into Major and Minor Arcana.

Oracle decks do not have to follow this structure.

An Oracle deck might contain:

• 30 cards

• 44 cards

• 50 cards

• 60 cards

• or virtually any number chosen by the creator

The cards can also follow completely different themes and systems.

So if you see a deck with 44 beautifully illustrated cards, for example, it may be an Oracle deck rather than a traditional Tarot deck.

Do You Need to Memorize All 78 Tarot Cards?

Not necessarily.

This is probably one of the biggest concerns among people who are just starting Tarot.

Looking at 78 cards and thinking, "I have to memorize all of these meanings" can make Tarot seem much harder than it really is.

A better approach is to understand the structure.

Learn the 22 Major Arcana as a broad journey through different human experiences.

Then learn the four suits of the Minor Arcana:

Wands = energy and action

Cups = emotions and relationships

Swords = thoughts and communication

Pentacles = material and practical life

Once you understand those four categories, the numbered cards become much easier to interpret.

For example, if you encounter a Seven of Cups, you already know that:

• Seven relates to a particular stage of development or challenge.

• Cups relate to emotions, relationships, imagination, and inner experience.

You can then begin connecting those ideas instead of trying to recall one fixed sentence from a textbook.

Why Does Tarot Have 78 Cards?

There isn't one universally accepted explanation that says, "This is the single reason Tarot contains exactly 78 cards."

The modern Tarot structure developed through a long historical process, and different Tarot traditions have interpreted its symbolism in different ways.

It is therefore better to distinguish between the historical structure of Tarot and later systems of symbolic interpretation.

Today, however, the 78-card structure provides a remarkably flexible system.

The Major Arcana gives us broad archetypal themes, while the Minor Arcana brings those themes into more ordinary areas of life.

Together, they create a system that can be used to explore questions about relationships, work, personal development, decisions, emotions, and many other subjects.

The 78 Tarot Cards: A Simple Way to Remember the Structure

If you're just starting out, you don't need to memorize everything immediately.

Remember this:

78 Tarot cards

↓

22 Major Arcana

56 Minor Arcana

↓

4 suits

• Wands — 14 cards

• Cups — 14 cards

• Swords — 14 cards

• Pentacles — 14 cards

↓

Each suit

• Ace–10

• Page

• Knight

• Queen

• King

Once this structure becomes familiar, the Tarot deck stops looking like 78 separate cards.

Instead, you begin to see it as a system.

And that's a much easier way to learn Tarot.

Final Thoughts

So, how many Tarot cards are there?

A traditional Tarot deck contains 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana cards and 56 Minor Arcana cards.

The Major Arcana explores larger themes and significant stages of experience, while the Minor Arcana is divided into four suits that deal with more everyday aspects of life.

If you're learning Tarot for the first time, don't worry about memorizing all 78 cards at once. Understanding the structure of the deck is a much better starting point.

Once you understand how the Major Arcana, four suits, numbers, and Court Cards fit together, reading individual cards becomes much more intuitive.