The chemical polarities of the two strands of polyoma virus DNA with respect to the DNA physical map have been determined by hybridization of restriction endonuclease fragments specifically labeled with [125I]dCMP at their 3' termini to asymmetric polyoma complementary RNA (the product of in vitro transcription of viral DNA by Escherichia coli RNA polymerase). The orientations of the polyoma-specific stable RNA transcripts present in the cytoplasm of productively linfected mouse cells have been deduced from this result: the 5' ends of the early and late viral transcripts map very near the origin of viral DNA replication.