Qibla direction in Ribeirão Pires

How to face the Qibla in Ribeirão Pires

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 21.1° towards north: the result is the bearing of 68.9°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 21° 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 Ribeirão Pires to Mecca points to 61.7° (north-east), 7.1° away from the correct 68.9°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 12 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 23.7106° S, 46.4133° 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 Ribeirão Pires to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 10,588 km from Ribeirão Pires as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 10,702 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 12 h 57 min, although most pilgrims from Ribeirão Pires connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Ribeirão Pires 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 Ribeirão Pires rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Ribeirão Pires

On 282 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Ribeirão Pires 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 12:01 local time.

On 55 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 18:08.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Ribeirão Pires (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 Ribeirão Pires points straight to Mecca.

Ribeirão Pires compared with other cities

The Qibla here is practically the same as in Brasília (68.8°), and Mecca is 171 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, São Bernardo do Campo (16 km), prays towards 68.9°, a difference of 0.1°.

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 Ribeirão Pires

• São Bernardo do Campo68.9° · 16 km
• Santos68.9° · 29 km
• São Paulo68.9° · 29 km
• Mogi das Cruzes68.8° · 31 km
• Jardim Presidente Dutra68.9° · 31 km
• Osasco69.0° · 43 km