Sometimes called a wind rose, a compass rose is a small starlike device used to indicate direction, often found in combination with radiating rhumb lines. North is usually indicated by a pointer on the compass rose. The points of the compass mark the divisions of the four cardinal directions: North, South, East, West. The number of points may be only the 4 cardinal points, or the 8 principal points adding the intercardinal (or ordinal) directions northeast (NE), southeast (SE), southwest (SW), and northwest (NW). Further intermediate points are added to give the sixteen points of a wind compass as shown in the map below.
