A small Chinese compass consisting of a wide thin disk of wood. At the centre of the compass is a small shallow bowl containing a dry-pivot needle. The needle is very thin and less than 1 inch (2.5cm) long. The needle points south. There is a line in the bowl indicating the north-south direction. Surrounding the bowl are five concentric rows of circles, each divided into segments and marked with either symbols or Chinese characters.

The fourth row is segmented into 24 parts indicating the traditional azimuthal directions. Each segment contains one Chinese character which in total consist of 20 cyclical characters and four gua (trigrams). These characters are arranged in the Zheng Zhen (meaning 'correct needle') position (i.e. the north-south direction). Beginning with the character in the South position and moving clockwise the characters are: Wu, Ding, Wei, Kun, Shen, Geng, You, Xin, Xu, Qian, Hai, Ren, Zi, Gui, Chou, Gen, Yin, Jia, Mao, Yi, Chen, Xun, Si and Bing. Although the characters do refer to directions, the characters in the North, South, East and West directions are not the characters or the literal translations for these directions, they are instead the traditional characters from the geomancer's compass. Wu, Kun, Shen, Xu, Qian, Ren, Zi, Gui, Yin, Jia, Yi, and Chen are red and all other characters are painted black. The red and black characters in this row represent the pure ying and pure yang. This row is found on all Chinese geomantic compasses. This is also the only row of characters found on Chinese mariner's compasses.

The Chinese characters painted on the back of the compass read: 'Xin An Xiu Yi Wang Yang Xi'. Xin-an was the alternative name of Huizhou Prefecture in Anhui Province during the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911 AD). Xiu Yi means Xiu County, i.e., Xiuning County, an important centre for manufacturing compasses and sundials. Wang Yangxi was probably a famous name used as a signature by several generations of compass and sundial artisans coming from Huizhou Prefecture, Anhui Province in the Qing dynasty. It is unclear whether 'Wang Yangxi' was the personal name of a particular maker. What is certain is that one of the most well-known sundial manufacturers from Huizhou since at least the 18th century had the Wang surname. Wang was also one of the most prominent surnames of Huizhou which was in turn well-known for the success of its merchants who played an important role of the commercial development of China in the Ming (1368 - 1644 AD) and Qing (1644 - 1911 AD) dynasties.