Qibla direction in Belo Horizonte

How to face the Qibla in Belo Horizonte

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 22.2° towards north: the result is the bearing of 67.8°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 22° 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

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Belo Horizonte to Mecca points to 63.2° (north-east), 4.6° away from the correct 67.8°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 9 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 19.9208° S, 43.9378° 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 Belo Horizonte to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 10,195 km from Belo Horizonte as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 10,294 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 12 h 30 min, although most pilgrims from Belo Horizonte connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Belo Horizonte 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 Belo Horizonte rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Belo Horizonte

On 233 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Belo Horizonte while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in March (31 days); for example, on 1 February 2027 it happens at 11:41 local time.

On 60 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 December (31 days), for instance on 1 January 2027 at 12:34.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Belo Horizonte (06:18 and 06:27 local time), so they cannot be used here.

Belo Horizonte compared with other cities

Compared with Brasília, 625 km away, the Qibla in Belo Horizonte is turned 1.0° further anticlockwise (67.8° against 68.8°), and Mecca is 222 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Ibirité (17 km), prays towards 67.8°, the same bearing to the tenth of a degree.

Across the 257 cities in Brazil on this site, the Qibla ranges from 66.1° in Maceió to 74.2° in Uruguaiana, a spread of 8.1°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Brazil.

Qibla in cities near Belo Horizonte

• Ibirité67.8° · 17 km
• Santa Luzia67.8° · 19 km
• Ribeirão das Neves67.8° · 23 km
• Betim67.9° · 28 km
• Sete Lagoas67.9° · 60 km
• Itabira67.5° · 82 km