We investigated the thermotropic phase behavior of the distearoylphosphatidylcholine (DSPC)-cholesterol binary bilayer membrane as a function of the cholesterol composition (X(ch)) by fluorescence spectroscopy using 6-propionyl-2-(dimethylamino)naphthalene (Prodan) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The fluorescence spectra, each of which has a single maximum, showed that the wavelength at the maximum intensity (lambda(max)) changed depending on the bilayer state: ca. 440 nm for the lamellar gel (L(beta)' or L(beta)) and the liquid ordered (L(o)) phases, ca. 470 nm for the ripple gel (P(beta)') phase and ca. 490 nm for the liquid crystalline (L(alpha)) phase, respectively. The transition temperatures were determined from the temperature dependences of the lambda(max) and endothermic peaks of the DSC thermograms. Both measurements showed that the pretransition disappears around X(ch)=0.035. The constructed temperature-X(ch) phase diagram indicated that the phase behavior of the binary bilayer membrane at X(ch)< or =0.15 is similar to that of general liquid-solid equilibrium for a binary system where both components are completely miscible in the liquid phase and completely immiscible in the solid phase. It was also revealed that the diagram has two characteristic points: a congruent melting point at X(ch)=0.08 and a peritectic-like point at X(ch)=0.15. The hexagonal lattice model was used for the interpretation of the phase behavior of the binary bilayer membrane. These characteristic compositions well correspond to the bilayer states in each of which cholesterol molecules are regularly distributed in the hexagonal lattice in a different way. That is, each composition of 0.035, 0.08 and 0.15 is nearly equal to that for the binary bilayer membrane which is entirely occupied with units, each composed of a cholesterol and 30 surrounding DSPC molecules within the next-next-next nearest neighbor sites (Unit (1:30): L(beta)(1:30)), with units, each of a cholesterol and 12 surrounding DSPC molecules within the next nearest sites (Unit (1:12): L(beta)(1:12)) or with units, each of a cholesterol and 6 surrounding DSPC molecules at the nearest neighbor sites (Unit (1:6): L(beta)(1:6)), respectively. Therefore, the eutectic behavior observed in the phase diagram was fully explainable in terms of a kind of phase separation between two different types of regions with different types of regular distributions of cholesterol. Further, the L(o) phase was found in the higher X(ch)-region (X(ch)>0.15). No endothermic peak over the temperature range from 10 to 80 degrees C at X(ch)=0.50 suggested that the single L(o) phase can exist at X(ch)>0.50.