Qibla direction in Lethbridge

How to face the Qibla in Lethbridge

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 26.3° towards east: the result is the bearing of 26.3°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at north would leave you about 26° off.

Facing the Qibla is a condition of the prayer. Whoever prays inside the Sacred Mosque faces the Kaaba itself; whoever is far away, as in Lethbridge, faces its direction and makes a sincere effort to be accurate. A nearby mosque is a handy reference, because its prayer rows were aligned when it was built. Once you know the direction at home, a discreet mark on the wall saves you from checking again.

Why a flat map shows a different direction

This is a place where maps mislead badly: a straight line on a flat map from Lethbridge to Mecca points to 103.1° (east), a full 76.8° away from the true Qibla of 26.3° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 2,222 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Lethbridge first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 26.3° obtained? From the coordinates of Lethbridge (49.7000° N, 112.8186° W) and of the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E), spherical trigonometry gives the starting bearing of the great circle joining them. Mosque architects and astronomical Qibla tables rely on exactly the same calculation.

Distance from Lethbridge to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 11,658 km from Lethbridge as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 11,329 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 14 h 13 min, although most pilgrims from Lethbridge connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Lethbridge run 9 hours behind Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Lethbridge rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Lethbridge

From Lethbridge the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 26.3°, so you cannot simply face the sun. The opposite method works instead, as the right-hand column of the table shows.

On 365 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 15:26.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Lethbridge (03:18 and 03:27 local time), so they cannot be used here. Instead, on 13 January 2027 at 15:29 and 28 November 2027 at 15:09 the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba, and every vertical shadow in Lethbridge points straight to Mecca.

Lethbridge compared with other cities

Compared with Ottawa, 2,797 km away, the Qibla in Lethbridge is turned 30.9° further anticlockwise (26.3° against 57.2°), and Mecca is 1,514 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Calgary (175 km), prays towards 25.0°, a difference of 1.3°.

Across the 46 cities in Canada on this site, the Qibla ranges from 16.5° in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada to 73.4° in St. John's, a spread of 56.9°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Canada.

Qibla in cities near Lethbridge

• Calgary25.0° · 175 km
• Red Deer25.1° · 294 km
• Edmonton25.3° · 430 km
• Kelowna20.0° · 479 km
• Saskatoon31.5° · 509 km
• Kamloops19.2° · 545 km