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The Lo Pan compass reflects all of the earth's circles and lines, and is used to obtain information about the landscape surrounding someone's home and office, as well as to draw up detailed geomantic tables.

Lo Pan is made up of circles, the number of which can reach 36 in some cases. Each circle is used to study a particular aspect of feng shui. There are 3 types of Lo Pans: the San He School, San Yuan School and Zong He School (combined compass).

Any feng shui compass has a Heaven Pond circle with a sensitive hand in its center. The Heaven Pond is surrounded by the Early Heaven Bagua circle with protective properties. The rest are the circles with ancient feng shui formulas. All this is placed in a red square. The larger the compass, the more accurate the data is. The accuracy is very important if you use formulas where the difference of 1-2 degrees could change the whole feng shui.

Following are the requirements for a quality compass: The disk with formulas and the Heaven Pond should rotate smoothly. The crossing of the red threads must be directly above the needle. If you align the last disk to 0 degrees from one side of the thread, the opposite side of the thread should point to 180 degrees. If all of these requirements are met, then it's a high-quality Lo Pan.

In feng shui, there are two main directions - the Form School and Compass School.

The Form School takes into account the landscape that surrounds a home, as a manifestation of four animals. A large black turtle (a mountain) is behind the building. A green dragon (mountains or tall trees) is on the left (if you stand with your back to the door). A white tiger (low trees) is on the right. A red phoenix (a stream or river) is in front of the house. The Form School for interior is based on comfort and security. For example, this school teaches us not to sit with our backs against a door, because we don't see who is outside, which may pose a potential threat.

The Compass School is divided into two schools: the San He School (3 harmonies), and San Yuan School (3 periods). The San He School (3 harmonies - heaven, human and earth) believes that feng shui is always either good or bad. The San Yuan School (3 periods) takes into account the time and believes that feng shui of a home varies from period to period. The circles on the Lo Pan compasses of these two schools differ from each other, but both have a circle of "24 mountains". Any feng shui compass divides each of the 8 directions (4 main and 4 intermediate) into three sectors, which make a total of 24 directions.

The Feng Shui practice often requires the use both compasses, so there is a combined Lo Pan that combines the formulas of both schools. Since it is impossible to accommodate all of the formulas on the same disk, they take only the most frequently used formulas.

The original square was first mentioned thousands of years ago; however, its original schemes were lost, and no specific descriptions are available either. Even Confucius had not seen the original schemes.

In its modern form, LoShu was published in the Chinese treatise in around 1200 AD. Since ancient times, Lo Shu was regarded as a nonary scheme which "portrays the vital properties of matters". In Chinese metaphysics, this square represents the concept of space connected with the concept of time.

The square has many astounding properties, like mathematical and metaphysical ones, which are studied and used in Chinese numerology. However, we will discuss the properties of the square that pertain to feng shui.

In feng shui, this square is used for the analysis of energy in any limited area of space (house, apartment, room, surface of a table, etc.). The energy map based on LoShu is usually called a geomantic map (this is a modern Western term, not ancient Chinese one). Both the trigrams of the Early Heaven and the trigrams of the Late Heaven can be used to understand the numbers of the Lo Shu square. The Late Heaven trigrams are used for the analysis of the indoor energy.

The square is called magical because the sum of the numbers in its rows, columns, and diagonals equals one and the same number - 15. If we divide 15 by the number of rows or columns (3), we obtain 5. Number 5 is in the center, representing the equilibrium of the middle. The remaining numbers are around it. The larger numbers can be regarded as Yang, smaller numbers can be regarded as Yin, and 5 is a neutral number.

Since the Sung period, the Chinese started to transform LoShu by subtracting or adding numbers to it. There are countless other options for such transformations. For instance, you can swap the numbers in opposite corners, you can rotate the scheme like swastika, and you can rotate it clockwise or counterclockwise.

Another similar method to divide the space into sectors is a Bagua map. People often ask: what's better - the Lo Shu square or Bagua map? Both, the square and the map are used to determine the sectors in space. Different schools give preference to either the square or map, and so do different feng shui practitioners. Once you learn more about each, you will be able to make your choice.

Bagua sectors: There are 9 Bagua sectors, each of which is 45°.

LoShu sectors:
- Sector 1 is in the North, its value is 30°, and its element is Water.

- Sector 2 is in the Southwest, its value is 60°, and its element is Earth.

- Sector 3 is in the East, its value is 30°, and its element is Wood.
- Sector 4 is in the Southeast, its value is 60°, and its element is Wood.

- Sector 5 is in the Center, its element is Earth. Sector 6 is on the Northwest, its value is 60°, and its element is Metal.

- Sector 7 is in the West, its value is 30°, and its element is Metal.

- Sector 8 is in the Northeast, its value is 60°, and its element is Earth.

- Sector 9 is in the South, its value is 30°, and its element is Fire.