Qibla direction in Campos dos Goytacazes

How to face the Qibla in Campos dos Goytacazes

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 23.1° towards north: the result is the bearing of 66.9°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 23° 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 Campos dos Goytacazes to Mecca points to 61.4° (north-east), 5.5° away from the correct 66.9°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 8 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 21.7523° S, 41.3304° 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 Campos dos Goytacazes to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 10,023 km from Campos dos Goytacazes as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 10,137 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 12 h 18 min, although most pilgrims from Campos dos Goytacazes connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Campos dos Goytacazes 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 Campos dos Goytacazes rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Campos dos Goytacazes

On 260 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Campos dos Goytacazes 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 January 2027 it happens at 11:48 local time.

On 40 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 (30 days), for instance on 1 January 2027 at 12:02.

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

Campos dos Goytacazes compared with other cities

Compared with Brasília, 961 km away, the Qibla in Campos dos Goytacazes is turned 1.9° further anticlockwise (66.9° against 68.8°), and Mecca is 394 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Itaperuna (84 km), prays towards 67.1°, a difference of 0.2°.

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 Campos dos Goytacazes

• Itaperuna67.1° · 84 km
• Macaé67.1° · 84 km
• Cachoeiro de Itapemirim66.8° · 103 km
• Rio das Ostras67.1° · 107 km
• Muriaé67.3° · 128 km
• Nova Friburgo67.4° · 137 km