The structure has full tetrahedral symmetry and is composed of one heteroatom surrounded by four oxygen atoms to form a tetrahedron. The heteroatom is located centrally and caged by 12 octahedral  units linked to one another by the neighboring oxygen atoms. There are a total of 24 bridging oxygen atoms that link the 12 addenda atoms. The metal centres in the 12 octahedra are arranged on a sphere almost equidistant from each other, in four  units, giving the complete structure an overall tetrahedral symmetry. The bond length between atoms varies depending on the heteroatom (X) and the addenda atoms (M). For the 12–phosphotungstic acid, Keggin determined the bond length between the heteroatom and each the four central oxygen atoms to be 1.5 Å. The bond length form the central oxygen to the addenda atoms is 2.43 Å. The bond length between the addenda atoms and each of the bridging oxygen is 1.9 Å. The remaining 12 oxygen atoms that are each double bonded to an addenda atom have a bond length of 1.70 Å. The octahedra are therefore distorted. This structure allows the molecule to hydrate and dehydrate without significant structural changes and the molecule is thermally stable in the solid state for use in vapor phase reactions at high temperatures (400−500 °C).