Qibla direction from your city
OneQibla's calculated bearing to the Kaaba: Sydney 277.5°, London 119.0°, New York 58.5° (great circle, from true north).
This page computes nothing in your browser and never asks where you are; its numbers were worked out when the site was built. Find the nearest city below, or work out the bearing for any place with the formula further down. The OneQibla app does the same calculation on your phone, for the place you set. For iPhone it is free on the App Store, available in most countries but not yet in the European Union: OneQibla on the App Store.
Bearings from major cities
| City | Latitude | Longitude | Bearing | Across 50 km |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cairo | 30.0444° N | 31.2357° E | 136.1° | 3.4° |
| Delhi | 28.6139° N | 77.2090° E | 266.6° | 0.9° |
| Dhaka | 23.8103° N | 90.4125° E | 277.6° | 0.6° |
| Dubai | 25.2048° N | 55.2708° E | 258.2° | 2.2° |
| Istanbul | 41.0082° N | 28.9784° E | 151.6° | 1.9° |
| Jakarta | 6.2088° S | 106.8456° E | 295.2° | 0.3° |
| Karachi | 24.8607° N | 67.0011° E | 267.7° | 1.2° |
| Kuala Lumpur | 3.1390° N | 101.6869° E | 292.5° | 0.3° |
| Lagos | 6.5244° N | 3.3792° E | 63.3° | 0.7° |
| London | 51.5074° N | 0.1278° W | 119.0° | 1.2° |
| New York | 40.7128° N | 74.0060° W | 58.5° | 0.4° |
| Paris | 48.8566° N | 2.3522° E | 119.2° | 1.2° |
| Riyadh | 24.7136° N | 46.6753° E | 243.8° | 5.0° |
| Sydney | 33.8688° S | 151.2093° E | 277.5° | 0.5° |
| Toronto | 43.6532° N | 79.3832° W | 54.6° | 0.5° |
Using the number
A bearing is measured clockwise from true north: 90° is east, 180° is south, 270° is west. Face true north, then turn clockwise by the bearing.
A magnetic compass points to magnetic north, which is not true north: in Sydney, for example, magnetic north is about 13° east of true north. A phone's compass can also be a few degrees out, especially near metal or other electronics.
How it is calculated
The bearing here is the initial bearing of the great circle from your place to the Kaaba in Makkah, on a spherical model of the Earth. It is the same method the app uses.
Some communities and published tables define the direction in other ways. From some places, North America above all, the results differ by tens of degrees. Which definition to follow is a religious question this page does not answer.
θ = atan2( sin Δλ · cos φ₂,
cos φ₁ · sin φ₂ − sin φ₁ · cos φ₂ · cos Δλ )
bearing = (θ + 360°) mod 360°- φ₁, λ₁
- your latitude and longitude, with south and west negative
- φ₂, λ₂
- the Kaaba: 21.4225° N, 39.8261° E (21°25′21″ N, 39°49′34″ E), from Saudi Arabia's aeronautical information publication (AIP ENR 5.1, area OEP01). That is an aviation publication, not a religious attestation.
- Δλ
- λ₂ − λ₁, the difference in longitude
Worked example: Sydney
φ₁ = −33.8688° (south), λ₁ = 151.2093°, so Δλ = 39.8261° − 151.2093° = −111.3832°. The formula gives θ = −82.5°, and −82.5° + 360° = 277.5°: 7.5° north of due west.
What has been checked
Every row above was computed with this formula from the coordinates shown, each city's usual central point. Every change to the site is checked by a separate program, which recomputes every row from the numbers on this page; the rows for London, New York, Sydney and Jakarta must match the app's own tests. The choice of method and of Kaaba coordinate has not been reviewed by a qualified religious scholar.