Facts About the Compass Rose

There are 32 different points on the compass rose. The eight main points represent the main winds: north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west and northwest. There are three points in between each of these that represent the other wind directions. When apprentices began working on ships they first had to memorize all the 32 points. This was called boxing the compass.

The fleur-de-lis is a symbol that is commonly used to designate north on a compass. This is because the original symbol for north was T, which stood for the name given to the north wind tramontana. East is typically shown as a cross, mostly an iron cross. The is because the name for the eastern wind was levante and was written as L. This eventually developed into a cross.

There are two different norths on a compass. The standard compass rose, the symbol that marks north, is for the north pole. As mapping became advanced, the magnetic north pointer was added to the compass rose. This is a magnetic pointer that moves to point to the magnetic north, or nearest land mass.

The typical colors used on a compass rose are black, red, blue and green. The eight main points are typically black because they needed to stand out most and lantern light was used in ships during the early days of exploration. The half winds and quarter winds are blue, green and red. The red was the hardest to see and therefore was used for the quarter winds.

This is the typical design for original compass roses, but some cultures developed other types as well. For example, the Chinese had a compass rose that used 12 main points instead of the typical eight. Each of these points represented different signs of the zodiac.