Qibla direction in Santa Fe

How to face the Qibla in Santa Fe

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 13.6° towards north: the result is the bearing of 76.4°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 14° off.

Scholars agree that someone who can see the Kaaba must face it exactly, while someone far away faces its direction (jihat al-Ka‘bah) as precisely as reasonably possible. If a mosque is nearby, its mihrab and prayer lines are the easiest reference, since they were set when the building was laid out. At home, mark the direction once with tape or a small arrow so the whole family prays the same way.

Why a flat map shows a different direction

This is a place where maps mislead badly: a straight line on a flat map from Santa Fe to Mecca points to 61.2° (north-east), a full 15.2° away from the true Qibla of 76.4° (east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 44 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Santa Fe first heads east, and that is the direction to face.

The angle on this page is the initial bearing of the great circle from 31.6488° S, 60.7087° W to the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E). It is the method used by mosque architects and by every serious Qibla calculator, and it gives one exact answer for each point on Earth.

Distance from Santa Fe to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 12,194 km from Santa Fe as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 12,327 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 14 h 51 min, although most pilgrims from Santa Fe connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Santa Fe run 6 hours behind Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Santa Fe rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Santa Fe

On 231 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Santa Fe while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in January (31 days); for example, on 1 January 2027 it happens at 11:20 local time.

On 106 days the sun stands exactly opposite the Qibla: then the shadow of any vertical object, a pole, a door frame or a plumb line, points straight towards Mecca. This is most frequent in January (31 days), for instance on 1 January 2027 at 18:11.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Santa Fe (06:18 and 06:27 local time), so they cannot be used here. Instead, on 13 January 2027 at 18:29 and 28 November 2027 at 18:09 the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba, and every vertical shadow in Santa Fe points straight to Mecca.

Santa Fe compared with other cities

The Qibla here is practically the same as in Buenos Aires (76.3°), and Mecca is 133 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Paraná (19 km), prays towards 76.3°, a difference of 0.1°.

Across the 34 cities in Argentina on this site, the Qibla ranges from 73.1° in Posadas to 86.4° in Comodoro Rivadavia, a spread of 13.3°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Argentina.

Qibla in cities near Santa Fe

• Paraná76.3° · 19 km
• Rosario, Santa Fe Province, Argentina76.8° · 144 km
• San Nicolás de los Arroyos76.7° · 193 km
• Concordia75.1° · 257 km
• Córdoba, Cordoba Province, Argentina77.9° · 331 km
• Jose C. Paz76.4° · 366 km