[1] This formation has a distinctive shape for a crater, having a prominent extension to the south that nearly doubles the dimension compared to the width across the maximum west–east cross-section.

Despite the odd shape, this crater has not been significantly eroded and only a few tiny craterlets mark the interior or the rim.

These two nearly resemble mirror images of each other, being joined down the center by a narrow ridge line and extending nearly twice as far to the north as their individual widths in the east–west direction.

Buys-Ballot lies just to the northwest of the small lunar mare named Lacus Luxuriae, and southeast of the crater Freundlich.

By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Buys-Ballot.