A 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 is less than 1 inch (2.5cm) long. The needle points south. A line in the bowl indicates the north-south direction. Surrounding the bowl are 22 concentric rows of circles, each divided into segments and marked with either symbols or Chinese characters.

The first row is divided into eight segments each with one of the eight trigrams. The trigrams on this particular compass are arranged in the everted form of the Fu Hsi. Fu Hsi is one type of formulation of the eight trigrams. It has been argued that the everted form of the Fu Hsi trigram circle appeared on compasses used for Feng Shui. This would therefore identify this compass as a geomancer's compass.

The second and third rows contain constellations. The sixth row is divided into 24 parts indicating the traditional azimuthal directions. Each segment contains one Chinese character which together consist of the 20 cyclical characters and four gua (trigrams). These characters are arranged in the Zheng Zhen (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.

The compass is held in a square wooden frame with a detachable lid. Two pieces of red string cross over the compass and thread through the wooden frame.

The Chinese characters painted on the back of the compass read: 'Guang Dong Guang Zhou Cheng Xi Hu Jie Nei Cheng Ju San Cai Dou Nan Shi Jian Zhi'. This translates as, 'The manufacturing is supervised by 'Cheng Ju San Cai Dou Nan Shi', Xihu Street, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province'. Although we cannot be sure, 'Cheng Ju San Cai Dou Nan Shi' most likely indicates the brand-name or personal name of the manufacturer or maker of the compass.