The yinyang symbol is the most popular representation of yinyang in the West. It has been used as an icon appearing on everything from book covers, business logos, and advertisements, to earrings, candles, and tattoos. The Chinese terms yin and yang have become a part of colloquial English, partly through this image. The image can also be seen everywhere in China, from temples to the well-known yinyang soup, which swirls together green vegetables and white egg yolk. Any comprehensive investigation of yinyang must offer some account of this symbol and its significance.

Some Chinese scholars have speculated that the yinyang symbol is an image of the meeting place between the cleaner water of the Yangzi River and muddy water of the Yellow River, but it is doubtful that the Yangzi River and the Yellow River would ever have actually crossed each other. However, at Chaotianmen dock in the city of Chongqing, the Jialing River and the Yangzi River converge, and one can see the swirling point between clean water and muddy water, which does produce a spiral-like movement resembling the image of yin and yang.