Luopan, Chinese 羅盤 luópán, also Lopan, literally “sample plate”: the Chinese compass; on the luopan the compass needle is surrounded by numerous rings on a rotatable plate (“heaven plate”) which can differ in their arrangement depending on the school. This compass is used in the classic feng shui.
The casing normally is quadratic and is called “earth plate”; the compass in the middle is also called “heavenly pool”.
Each of this rings contain formulas, numbers or directions used for the analysis by a feng shui consultant.
On the luopan there are 24 compass directions, the so called 24 mountains, which are a mixture of trigrams, heavenly stems and earth branches.
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Luopan