A Chinese compass consisting of a wide thin disk of wood, with a small shallow bowl containing a dry-pivot needle and a line indicating the north-south direction. Surrounding the bowl are five concentric rings, each divided into segments and marked with either symbols or Chinese characters. The fourth 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 (lit. '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, but are 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 Chinese character painted on the back read, 'Xin An Xiu Yi'. Xin'an was the name of Huizhou Prefecture in Anhui Province during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Xiu Yi means Xiu County, i.e. Xiuning County, which was a manufacturing centre for compasses and sundials. The characters 'Liu He Shao' plus a seal-like character painted in red are also on the back of the compass, although their meaning characters is unclear.