Qibla direction in Sonargaon

How to face the Qibla in Sonargaon

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards west and move a further 7.8° towards north: the result is the bearing of 277.8°. The direction is close to due west, which makes it easy to remember.

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. The simplest check in Sonargaon is a local mosque: its mihrab and prayer lines already point to the Qibla. See the mosques of Sonargaon. 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

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Sonargaon to Mecca points to 267.3° (west), 10.5° away from the correct 277.8°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 27 km longer than the true shortest route. The Qibla follows the great circle, the shortest path on the curved Earth, which is why the bearing differs.

The angle on this page is the initial bearing of the great circle from 23.6500° N, 90.6167° E 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 Sonargaon to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 5,195 km from Sonargaon as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 5,149 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 6 h 37 min, although most pilgrims from Sonargaon connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Sonargaon run 3 hours ahead of Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Sonargaon rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Sonargaon

On 142 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Sonargaon while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in May (31 days); for example, on 15 April 2027 it happens at 17:45 local time.

On 217 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 May (31 days), for instance on 15 March 2027 at 07:02.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Sonargaon: at 15:18 and 15:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Sonargaon compared with other cities

The Qibla here is practically the same as in Dhaka (277.7°), and Mecca is 22 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Dhaka (22 km), prays towards 277.7°, a difference of 0.1°.

Across the 44 cities in Bangladesh on this site, the Qibla ranges from 274.8° in Thakurgaon to 280.1° in Cox’s Bāzār, a spread of 5.4°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Bangladesh.

Qibla in cities near Sonargaon

• Dhaka277.7° · 22 km
• Narsingdi277.6° · 32 km
• Savar Upazila277.5° · 43 km
• Gazipur277.4° · 43 km
• Chāndpur278.2° · 47 km
• Bhairab Bāzār277.5° · 58 km