The traditional name of the interlocking black-and-white balance symbol is taijitu.
The word taijitu means a diagram or image of the Supreme Ultimate. The familiar modern design has two curved halves, one dark and one light, each containing a contrasting dot. It visually expresses complementary forces commonly associated with yin and yang.
The symbol is widely connected with Taoist and broader Chinese philosophical imagery, although the exact modern form developed through historical diagram traditions rather than appearing unchanged in the earliest Taoist texts. Yin and yang are not simply “good” and “evil”; they describe complementary, interdependent tendencies.
Taijitu is often confused with the bagua, the eight-trigram arrangement used in the Book of Changes. The two symbols can appear together, but they are distinct: the taijitu is the circular yin-yang diagram, while the bagua consists of trigrams.