Qibla direction in Montes Claros

How to face the Qibla in Montes Claros

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 22.3° towards north: the result is the bearing of 67.7°. 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 Montes Claros to Mecca points to 65.1° (north-east), 2.7° away from the correct 67.7°. 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 16.7350° S, 43.8617° 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 Montes Claros to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 10,053 km from Montes Claros as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 10,136 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 12 h 20 min, although most pilgrims from Montes Claros connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Montes Claros 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 Montes Claros rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Montes Claros

On 217 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Montes Claros 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 15 February 2027 it happens at 11:31 local time.

On 85 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 13:15.

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

Montes Claros compared with other cities

Compared with Brasília, 447 km away, the Qibla in Montes Claros is turned 1.1° further anticlockwise (67.7° against 68.8°), and Mecca is 364 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Teófilo Otoni (280 km), prays towards 67.0°, a difference of 0.7°.

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 Montes Claros

• Teófilo Otoni67.0° · 280 km
• Sete Lagoas67.9° · 306 km
• Governador Valadares67.1° · 310 km
• Itabira67.5° · 328 km
• Ipatinga67.3° · 335 km
• Santa Luzia67.8° · 337 km