Qibla direction in Coquitlam

How to face the Qibla in Coquitlam

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 17.0° towards east: the result is the bearing of 17.0°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at north would leave you about 17° 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 Coquitlam, 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 Coquitlam to Mecca points to 102.1° (east), a full 85.1° away from the true Qibla of 17.0° (north). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 2,812 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Coquitlam first heads north, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 17.0° obtained? From the coordinates of Coquitlam (49.2846° N, 122.7822° 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 Coquitlam to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 11,966 km from Coquitlam as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 11,630 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 14 h 35 min, although most pilgrims from Coquitlam connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Coquitlam run 10 hours behind Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Coquitlam rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Coquitlam

From Coquitlam the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 17.0°, 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 14:26.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Coquitlam (02:18 and 02:27 local time), so they cannot be used here. Instead, on 13 January 2027 at 14:29 and 28 November 2027 at 14:09 the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba, and every vertical shadow in Coquitlam points straight to Mecca.

Coquitlam compared with other cities

Compared with Ottawa, 3,515 km away, the Qibla in Coquitlam is turned 40.2° further anticlockwise (17.0° against 57.2°), and Mecca is 1,822 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Surrey (20 km), prays towards 16.9°, the same bearing to the tenth of a degree.

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 Coquitlam

• Surrey16.9° · 20 km
• Vancouver16.7° · 25 km
• Delta16.7° · 29 km
• Abbotsford British Columbia17.5° · 46 km
• Chilliwack17.8° · 62 km
• Victoria, British Columbia, Canada16.5° · 103 km