A compass rose or compass star, sometimes called a wind rose or rose of the winds, is a polar

diagram A diagram is a symbolic Depiction, representation of information using Visualization (graphics), visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on Cave painting, walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Age o ...

displaying the orientation of the

cardinal direction The four cardinal directions or cardinal points are the four main compass directions: north (N), south (S), east (E), and west (W). The corresponding azimuths ( clockwise horizontal angle from north) are 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°. The ...

s (

north North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

east East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...

south South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

, and

west West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

) and their intermediate points. It is used on compasses (including

magnetic Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, m ...

ones),

map A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

s (such as compass rose networks), or monuments. It is particularly common in

navigation system A navigation system is a computing system that aids in navigation. Navigation systems may be entirely on board the vehicle or vessel that the system is controlling (for example, on the ship's bridge) or located elsewhere, making use of radio or oth ...

s, including

nautical chart A nautical chart or hydrographic chart is a graphic representation of a sea region or water body and adjacent coasts or river bank, banks. Depending on the scale (map), scale of the chart, it may show depths of water (bathymetry) and heights of ...

non-directional beacon A non-directional beacon (NDB) or non-directional radio beacon is a radio beacon which does not include directional information. Radio beacons are radio transmitters at a known location, used as an aviation or marine navigational aid. NDB are i ...

s (NDB),

VHF omnidirectional range Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range Station (VOR) is a type of short-range VHF radio navigation system for aircraft, enabling aircraft with a VOR receiver to determine the azimuth (also radial), referenced to magnetic north, between the a ...

(VOR) systems,

satellite navigation device A satellite navigation (satnav) device or GPS device is a device that uses satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS) or similar global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). A satnav device can determine the user's geographic coordinat ...

s (" GPS").

Types

Linguistic anthropological studies have shown that most human communities have four points of

. The names given to these directions are usually derived from either locally-specific geographic features (e.g. "towards the hills", "towards the sea") or from celestial bodies (especially the sun) or from atmospheric features (winds, temperature). Most mobile populations tend to adopt sunrise and sunset for East and West and the direction from where different winds blow to denote North and South.

Classical

The

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

s originally maintained distinct and separate systems of points and winds. The four Greek

cardinal points The four cardinal directions or cardinal points are the four main compass directions: north (N), south (S), east (E), and west (W). The corresponding azimuths ( clockwise horizontal angle from north) are 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°. The four ...

(, , and ) were based on celestial bodies and used for orientation. The four Greek

winds Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

(, , , ) were confined to

meteorology Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agricultur ...

. Nonetheless, both systems were gradually conflated, and wind names came eventually to denote cardinal directions as well. In his meteorological studies,

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

identified ten distinct winds: two north–south winds (, ) and four sets of east–west winds blowing from different latitudes—the

Arctic Circle The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the northernmost of the five major circle of latitude, circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth at about 66° 34' N. Its southern counterpart is the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Circl ...

(, ), the

summer solstice The summer solstice or estival solstice occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). The summer solstice is the day with the longest peri ...

horizon (, ), the

equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun appears directly above the equator, rather than to its north or south. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise directly east and set directly west. This occurs twice each year, arou ...

(, ) and the

winter solstice The winter solstice, or hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's geographical pole, poles reaches its maximum axial tilt, tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern Hemisphere, Northern and So ...

(, ). Aristotle's system was asymmetric. To restore balance, Timosthenes of Rhodes added two more winds to produce the classical 12-wind rose, and began using the winds to denote geographical direction in navigation.

Eratosthenes Eratosthenes of Cyrene (; ; – ) was an Ancient Greek polymath: a Greek mathematics, mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theory, music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of A ...

deducted two winds from Aristotle's system, to produce the classical eight-wind rose. The Romans (e.g. Seneca, Pliny) adopted the Greek 12-wind system, and replaced its names with

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

equivalents, e.g. , , , , etc. The ''

De architectura (''On architecture'', published as ''Ten Books on Architecture'') is a treatise on architecture written by the Ancient Rome, Roman architect and military engineer Vitruvius, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesa ...

'' of the Roman architect

Vitruvius Vitruvius ( ; ; –70 BC – after ) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled . As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissan ...

describes 24 winds. Roman 12-wind rose

According to the chronicler

Einhard Einhard (also Eginhard or Einhart; ; 775 – 14 March 840) was a Franks, Frankish scholar and courtier. Einhard was a dedicated servant of Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious; his main work is a biography of Charlemagne, the ''Vita Karoli M ...

(), the Frankish king

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...

himself came up with his own names for the classical 12 winds. During the

Migration Period The Migration Period ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories ...

, the Germanic names for the cardinal directions entered the

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

, where they replaced the

names ''borealis'' with north, ''australis'' with south, ''occidentalis'' with west and ''orientalis'' with east. The following table gives a rough equivalence of the classical 12-wind rose with the modern compass directions (Note: the directions are imprecise since it is not clear at what angles the classical winds are supposed to be with each other; some have argued that they should be equally spaced at 30 degrees each; for more details, see the article on

Classical compass winds In the Greco-Roman world, ancient Mediterranean world, the classical compass winds were names for the points of geographic direction and orientation, in association with the anemoi, winds as conceived of by the ancient Greece, ancient Greeks and ...

Sidereal

The sidereal compass rose demarcates the compass points by the position of

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

s ("steering stars"; not to be confused with zenith stars) in the night sky, rather than winds.

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

navigators in the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

and the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

, who depended on

celestial navigation Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space or on the surface ...

, were using a 32-point sidereal compass rose before the end of the 10th century. In the northern hemisphere, the steady Pole Star (

Polaris Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris (Latinisation of names, Latinized to ''Alpha Ursae Minoris'') and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an ...

) was used for the N–S axis; the less-steady

Southern Cross CRUX is a lightweight x86-64 Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users and delivered by a tar.gz-based package system with BSD-style initscripts. It is not based on any other Linux distribution. It also utilizes a ports system to ...

had to do for the southern hemisphere, as the southern pole star, Sigma Octantis, is too dim to be easily seen from Earth with the naked eye. The other thirty points on the sidereal rose were determined by the rising and setting positions of fifteen bright stars. Reading from North to South, in their rising and setting positions, these are: The western half of the rose would be the same stars in their setting position. The true position of these stars is only approximate to their theoretical equidistant rhumbs on the sidereal compass. Stars with the same

declination In astronomy, declination (abbreviated dec; symbol ''δ'') is one of the two angles that locate a point on the celestial sphere in the equatorial coordinate system, the other being hour angle. The declination angle is measured north (positive) or ...

formed a "linear constellation" or ' to provide direction as the night progressed. A similar sidereal compass was used by Polynesian and Micronesian navigators in the Pacific Ocean, although different stars were used in a number of cases, clustering around the east–west axis.

Mariner's

In Europe, the Classical 12-wind system continued to be taught in academic settings during the Medieval era, but seafarers in the Mediterranean came up with their own distinct 8-wind system. The mariners used names derived from the

Mediterranean lingua franca The Mediterranean Lingua Franca, or Sabir, was a contact language, or languages, that were used as a lingua franca in the Mediterranean basin from the 11th to the 19th centuries. April McMahon describes Sabir as a "fifteenth century proto-pid ...

, composed principally of Ligurian, mixed with Venetian, Sicilian, Provençal, Catalan,

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

terms from around the Mediterranean basin. * (N) Tramontana * (NE) Greco (or Bora) * (E) Levante * (SE) Scirocco (or Exaloc) * (S) Ostro (or Mezzogiorno) * (SW) Libeccio (or Garbino) * (W) Ponente * (NW) Maestro (or Mistral) The exact origin of the mariner's eight-wind rose is obscure. Only two of its point names (''Ostro'', ''Libeccio'') have Classical etymologies, the rest of the names seem to be autonomously derived. Two

words stand out: ''Scirocco'' (SE) from ''al-Sharq'' (الشرق – east in Arabic) and the variant ''Garbino'' (SW), from ''al-Gharb'' (الغرب – west in Arabic). This suggests the mariner's rose was probably acquired by southern Italian seafarers; not from their classical Roman ancestors, but rather from

Norman Sicily The Kingdom of Sicily (; ; ) was a state that existed in Sicily and the southern Italian Peninsula as well as, for a time, in Northern Africa, from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of ...

in the 11th to 12th centuries. The coasts of the

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...

and

Mashriq The Mashriq (; ), also known as the Arab Mashriq (), sometimes spelled Mashreq or Mashrek, is a term used by Arabs to refer to the eastern part of the Arab world, as opposed to the Maghreb (western) region, and located in West Asia and easter ...

are SW and SE of Sicily respectively; the ''Greco'' (a NE wind), reflects the position of Byzantine-held Calabria-Apulia to the northeast of Arab Sicily, while the ''Maestro'' (a NW wind) is a reference to the Mistral wind that blows from the southern French coast towards northwest Sicily. The 32-point compass used for navigation in the Mediterranean by the 14th century, had increments of 11° between points. Only the eight principal winds (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) were given special names. The eight half-winds just combined the names of the two principal winds, e.g. Greco-Tramontana for NNE, Greco-Levante for ENE, and so on. Quarter-winds were more cumbersomely phrased, with the closest principal wind named first and the next-closest principal wind second, e.g. "Quarto di Tramontana verso Greco" (literally, "one quarter wind from North towards Northeast", i.e. North by East), and "Quarto di Greco verso Tramontana" ("one quarter wind from NE towards N", i.e. Northeast by North).

Boxing the compass The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—ea ...

(naming all 32 winds) was expected of all Medieval mariners.

Depiction on nautical charts

In the earliest medieval

portolan chart Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean basin and later expanded to include other regions. The word ''portolan'' comes from the Italian language, Italian ''portolano'', meaning " ...

s of the 14th century, compass roses were depicted as mere collections of color-coded compass rhumb lines: black for the eight main winds, green for the eight half-winds and red for the sixteen quarter-winds. The average portolan chart had sixteen such roses (or confluence of lines), spaced out equally around the circumference of a large implicit circle. The cartographer Cresques Abraham of

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest of the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of the island, Palma, Majorca, Palma, i ...

, in his

Catalan Atlas The Catalan Atlas (, ) is a medieval world map, or mappa mundi, probably created in the late 1370s or the early 1380s (often conventionally dated 1375), that has been described as the most important map of the Middle Ages in the Catalan language, ...

of 1375, was the first to draw an ornate compass rose on a map. By the end of the 15th century, Portuguese cartographers began drawing multiple ornate compass roses throughout the chart, one upon each of the sixteen circumference roses (unless the illustration conflicted with coastal details). The points on a compass rose were frequently labeled by the initial letters of the mariner's principal winds (T, G, L, S, O, L, P, M). From the outset, the custom also began to distinguish the north from the other points by a specific visual marker. Medieval Italian cartographers typically used a simple arrowhead or circumflex-hatted T (an allusion to the compass needle) to designate the north, while the Majorcan cartographic school typically used a stylized

Pole Star A pole star is a visible star that is approximately aligned with the axis of rotation of an astronomical body; that is, a star whose apparent position is close to one of the celestial poles. On Earth, a pole star would lie directly overhead when ...

for its north mark. The use of the

fleur-de-lis The ''fleur-de-lis'', also spelled ''fleur-de-lys'' (plural ''fleurs-de-lis'' or ''fleurs-de-lys''), is a common heraldic charge in the (stylized) shape of a lily (in French, and mean and respectively). Most notably, the ''fleur-de-lis'' ...

as north mark was introduced by Pedro Reinel, and quickly became customary in compass roses (and is still often used today). Old compass roses also often used a

Christian cross The Christian cross, seen as representing the crucifixion of Jesus, is a religious symbol, symbol of Christianity. It is related to the crucifix, a cross that includes a ''corpus'' (a representation of Jesus' body, usually three-dimensional) a ...

at Levante (E), indicating the direction of

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

from the point of view of the Mediterranean sea.Dan Reboussin (2005)
Wind Rose.

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...

. Retrieved on 2009-04-26. The twelve Classical winds (or a subset of them) were also sometimes depicted on portolan charts, albeit not on a compass rose, but rather separately on small disks or coins on the edges of the map. The compass rose was also depicted on traverse boards used on board ships to record headings sailed at set time intervals. File:Portolan windrose (plain).jpg, Early 32-wind compass rose, shown as a mere collection of color-coded rhumblines, from a Genoese nautical chart () File:Compass rose from Catalan Atlas (1375).jpg, First ornate compass rose depicted on a chart, from the

(1375), with the

as north mark File:WInd Rose Aguiar.svg, More ornate compass rose, with letters of traditional winds, a

cross pattée A cross pattée or cross patty (, ), also known as a cross formée or cross formy, or even a Templar cross, is a type of Christian cross with arms that are narrow at the centre and often flared in a curve or straight line shape to be broader at th ...

(referring to Jerusalem) for east, and a compass needle as north mark, from a nautical chart by Jorge de Aguiar (1492) File:Compass rose Cantino.svg, Highly ornate compass rose, with

as north mark and cross pattée as east mark, from the Cantino planisphere (1502)

Modern depictions

The contemporary compass rose appears as two rings, one smaller and set inside the other. The outside ring denotes ''true''

s while the smaller inside ring denotes ''magnetic'' cardinal directions.

True north True north is the direction along Earth's surface towards the place where the imaginary rotational axis of the Earth intersects the surface of the Earth on its Northern Hemisphere, northern half, the True North Pole. True south is the direction ...

refers to the geographical location of the

north pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...

while

magnetic north The north magnetic pole, also known as the magnetic north pole, is a point on the surface of Earth's Northern Hemisphere at which the planet's magnetic field points vertically downward (in other words, if a magnetic compass needle is allowed t ...

refers to the direction towards which the north pole of a magnetic object (as found in a

compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with No ...

) will point. The angular difference between ''true'' and ''magnetic'' north is called variation, which varies depending on location. The angular difference between magnetic heading and compass heading is called deviation which varies by vessel and its heading. North arrows are often included in contemporary maps as part of the

map layout Map layout, also called map composition or (cartographic) page layout, is the part of cartographic design that involves assembling various map elements on a page. This may include the map image itself, along with titles, legends, scale indicator ...

. The modern compass rose has eight principal winds. Listed clockwise, these are: Although modern compasses use the names of the eight principal directions (N, NE, E, SE, etc.), older compasses use the traditional Italianate wind names of Medieval origin (Tramontana, Greco, Levante, etc.). Four-point compass roses use only the four "basic winds" or "

cardinal directions The four cardinal directions or cardinal points are the four main compass directions: north (N), south (S), east (E), and west (W). The corresponding azimuths ( clockwise horizontal angle from north) are 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°. The four ...

" (North, East, South, West), with angles of difference at 90°. Eight-point compass roses use the eight principal winds—that is, the four cardinal directions (N, E, S, W) plus the four "intercardinal" or " ordinal directions" (NE, SE, SW, NW), at angles of difference of 45°. Twelve-point compass roses, with markings 30° apart, are often painted on

airport ramp The airport apron, apron, flight line, or ramp is the area of an airport where aircraft are parked, unloaded or loaded, refueled, boarded, or maintained. Although the use of the apron is covered by regulations, such as lighting on vehicles, it ...

s to assist with the adjustment of aircraft magnetic compass compensators. Sixteen-point compass roses are constructed by bisecting the angles of the principal winds to come up with intermediate compass points, known as half-winds, at angles of difference of 22°. The names of the half-winds are simply combinations of the principal winds to either side, principal then ordinal. E.g. North-northeast (NNE), East-northeast (ENE), etc. Using

gradians In trigonometry, the gradianalso known as the gon (), grad, or gradeis a unit of measurement of an angle, defined as one-hundredth of the right angle; in other words, 100 gradians is equal to 90 degrees. It is equivalent to of a turn, of a ...

, of which there are 400 in a circle, the sixteen-point rose has twenty-five gradians per point. Thirty-two-point compass roses are constructed by bisecting these angles, and coming up with quarter-winds at 11° angles of difference. Quarter-wind names are constructed with the names "X by Y", which can be read as "one quarter wind from X toward Y", where X is one of the eight principal winds and Y is one of the two adjacent cardinal directions. For example, North-by-east (NbE) is one quarter wind from North towards East, Northeast-by-north (NEbN) is one quarter wind from Northeast toward North. Naming all 32 points on the rose is called "

boxing the compass The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—ea ...

". The 32-point rose has 11° between points, but is easily found by halving divisions and may have been easier for those not using a 360° circle. Eight points make a right angle and a point is easy to estimate allowing bearings to be given such as "two points off the starboard bow". File:Compass rose en 04p.svg, A 4-point compass rose File:Compass rose en 08p.svg, An 8-point compass rose File:Brosen windrose.svg, A 16-point compass rose File:Brosen windrose Full.svg, A 32-point compass rose File:Kompassrose.svg, A 360 degree and 6400 NATO mil compass rose

Use as symbol

* The

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

symbol uses a four-pointed rose. *

Outward Bound Outward Bound (OB) is an international network of outdoor education organisations that was founded in the United Kingdom by Lawrence Holt in 1941 based on the educational principles of Kurt Hahn. Today there are organisations, called schools, i ...

uses the compass rose as the logo for various schools around the world. * An 8-point compass rose was the logo of

Varig VARIG (''Viação Aérea Rio-Grandense'', 'Rio Grandean Airways') was the first airline founded in Brazil, in 1927. From 1965 until 1990, it was Brazil's leading airline and virtually its only international one. In 2005, Varig went into judici ...

, the largest airline in Brazil for many decades until its bankruptcy in 2006. * An 8-point compass rose is a prominent feature in the logo of the

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. The Mariners compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League West, West Division. The team joined the American ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

club. *

Hong Kong Correctional Services The Correctional Services Department (CSD) is responsible for the management of prisoners and prisons in Hong Kong. The Commissioner of Correctional Services reports to the Secretary for Security. History Although the Chief Magistrate (now C ...

's crest uses a four-pointed compass rose. * The compass rose is used as the symbol of the worldwide

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is a Christian Full communion, communion consisting of the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, ...

of churches. * A 16-point compass rose was

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

's logo for the

System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. System/360 was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applicati ...

product line. * A 16-point compass rose is the official logo of the Spanish National University of Distance Education (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia or UNED). * A 16-point compass rose is present on the seal and the flag of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

of the federal government of the United States (the CIA). * Tattoos of eight-pointed stars are used by the

Vor v Zakone VOR or vor may refer to: Organizations * Vale of Rheidol Railway in Wales * in Austria * Voice of Russia, a radio broadcaster Science, technology and medicine * VHF omnidirectional range, a radio navigation aid used in aviation * Vestibul ...

to denote rank. * The rationality-focused community blog LessWrong uses a compass rose as its logo.

In popular culture

*'' The Compass Rose'' is a 1982 collection of short stories by

Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( ; Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantas ...

References

External links

The Rose of the Winds
an example of a rose with 26 directions.
Compass Rose of Piedro Reinel, 1504
an example of a 32-point rose with cross for east (the Christian Holy Land) and fleur-di-lis for north (do ''find'' for "Reinel").

Brief compass rose history info

{{DEFAULTSORT:Compass Rose Navigation Cartography