朱雀，中国古代“四灵”之一。

　　 朱雀就是「凤凰」。但有些人认为不是所有的凤凰是朱雀，只有那些天上的凤凰才是朱雀。但不管怎样，它们都是中国古人创造出来并倍受崇拜的吉祥鸟。 红色代表南方。 所以朱雀就是南方之神。

　　　Red bird is one of the four spiritual creatures. （See below)

　　　The red bird also called phoenix. But some people think that not all phoenixes are red birds. Only the phoenix of the celestial is the red bird. Anyway, they are all auspicious birds created and worshipped by ancient Chinese people. The color of the south is red. So the red bird represents the south and the spirit of the south

四灵 The four spiritual creatures

　　“四灵”是中国人对动物的最古老的分类。人们根据动物的飞、走、行、游，羽、毛、鳞和天、地、水、土等性状特征及活动范围，将它们分成鸟、兽、虫、鱼四大类别，每类找一个代表，于是就产生“四灵”。同时， 四灵的形成又与古代天文学的发展联系在一起，殷代前后，古人把春天黄昏前后南方的若干星辰想像为一只鸟形，东方为一只龙形，西方为一只虎形，而北方为龟蛇形象。到了春秋战国，人们又将“四灵”标上了颜色，即青龙、白虎、朱雀、玄武。

　　Long long ago, ancient Chinese people sorted animals into four categories ( bird, beast, worm and fish ) according to their characters of flying, walking, moving , swimming , feather, plume , scale and their regions of living (sky, river, land ). Then they select one animal as representation of each category. This is the origin of the four spiritual creatures. With the development of the ancient astronomy, the four creatures were connected with star constellations and directions. About Yin dynasty, people thought that the configuration of star constellations in the east liked a dragon, south bird, west tiger and north the union of tortoise and snake. When it came to the Warring State , people added one color for each creature. From then on green/blue dragon( 青龙 ) ， white tiger ( 白虎 ) ， red bird ( 朱雀 ) and black tortoise/black union of tortoise and snake( 玄武 ) were frequently painted on the walls of the early Chinese and regarded as the four spiritual creatures of the celestial having the apotropaic function of warding off the evil spirits.