Most explanations of Taoist symbols stop at "balance", which is roughly as useful as explaining a wedding ring by saying it is round. Each of these makes a specific claim about how the world works, and the claims are more interesting than the decoration they have become.
The taijitu, which everyone calls the yin yang symbol
Two halves, one dark and one light, divided by a curve rather than a line, each carrying a dot of the other. Three design decisions, three arguments.
The curve says the two are not two things placed side by side but one thing in motion, each becoming the other. A straight line would have meant a border. The dots say there is no pure state: nothing is entirely yin or entirely yang, and the maximum of one already contains the beginning of the other, which is why midsummer is when the days start shortening. The circle says the pair is complete and closed — this is not good versus evil, it is a description of how a whole thing divides.
Yin is the shady side of a hill: dark, receptive, yielding, cold, still. Yang is the sunny side: bright, active, firm, warm, moving. Neither is preferable, which is the point most Western uses of the symbol lose. Our longer explainer covers the pairs and the common misreadings.
The symbol is older than its Taoist use and belongs to Chinese cosmology generally. Calling it "the Taoism symbol" is close enough for everyday purposes and not strictly accurate.
The bagua, the eight trigrams
Eight three-line figures arranged around an octagon, each line either solid (yang) or broken (yin). Three binary lines give eight combinations, and the eight combinations map to heaven, earth, water, fire, thunder, wind, mountain and lake. Stack two trigrams and you get the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching.
The system is a claim that a small set of binary distinctions, combined, can describe every situation. Whether or not you find that plausible as cosmology, it is a genuinely elegant piece of thinking, and it predates the binary arithmetic it resembles by about two and a half thousand years. Leibniz noticed the resemblance in 1703 and got very excited about it.
Two arrangements exist. The Earlier Heaven sequence is symmetrical and cosmological; the Later Heaven sequence is the one used in divination and feng shui. Bagua mirrors above doorways are folk practice rather than philosophical Taoism, which is a distinction the tradition itself has never policed very hard.
The smaller symbols
The gourd (hulu) is the most quietly Taoist object in the set. It is a container that is empty inside, which is the Tao Te Ching's favourite argument: the useful part of a vessel is the part that is not there. Carried by immortals in the iconography, and used in folk practice for medicine and for holding things you would rather keep contained.
The crane stands for longevity and for the flight between worlds; Taoist immortals are routinely depicted riding one. The peach is the fruit of immortality from the Queen Mother of the West's garden, which ripens once every three thousand years. The Big Dipper is the celestial anchor of Taoist ritual, the pattern priests trace when pacing out a rite.
All four belong more to religious Taoism than to the philosophical texts, and the pantheon that goes with them is in our guide to Taoist gods.
What Taoism does not have
There is no single emblem in the way a cross or a crescent works, because there was no single institution to standardise one. What you have instead is a set of images that recur, mean roughly the same thing across schools, and are shared freely with Chinese folk religion, Confucianism and Chinese Buddhism. If that seems untidy, see whether Taoism is a religion, which is untidy for the same reason.
For the ideas underneath the pictures: what the Tao is, wu wei, and the three treasures. To read the source itself, how to read the Tao Te Ching, or 365 Days of Tao (ours, flagged) for one verse a day with a plain-English reflection.
Common questions
What is the main symbol of Taoism?
The taijitu, usually called the yin yang symbol: a circle divided by an S-curve into a dark half and a light half, each holding a dot of the other. It predates Taoism's use of it and belongs to Chinese cosmology more broadly.
What do the dots in the yin yang symbol mean?
That nothing is ever purely one thing. The maximum of yang already contains the seed of yin, which is why the longest day of the year is the day the light starts receding. Remove the dots and the symbol says something much duller about balance.
What is the bagua?
The eight trigrams: three-line figures of solid and broken lines, one per combination, mapped to heaven, earth, water, fire, thunder, wind, mountain and lake. Pairs of trigrams stack into the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching.
Is the yin yang symbol religious?
Not in the way a cross is. It is a cosmological diagram used across Taoism, Confucianism, Chinese medicine and folk practice, with no single institution owning it and no requirement of belief attached to wearing it.
What is the Taoist symbol for balance?
The taijitu again, though "balance" undersells it. It describes not a stable equilibrium but a continuous exchange, in which each side is already turning into the other. A scale would be the symbol for balance; this is the symbol for cycle.
Why does the gourd appear in Taoist art?
Because it is useful on account of being empty, which is the Tao Te Ching's central illustration of the value of what is not there. It also carries medicine, which suits a tradition with a long alchemical and healing strand.