Qibla direction in Calama

How to face the Qibla in Calama

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 14.2° towards north: the result is the bearing of 75.8°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 14° 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 Calama to Mecca points to 67.5° (east), 8.3° away from the correct 75.8°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 21 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 22.4567° S, 68.9237° 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 Calama to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 12,741 km from Calama as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 12,808 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 15 h 29 min, although most pilgrims from Calama connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Calama run 6 hours behind Mecca in winter and 7 hours behind Mecca in summer, because of daylight saving time. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Calama rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Calama

On 207 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Calama 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 13:23 local time.

On 100 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 13:48.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Calama (05:18 and 05:27 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 Calama points straight to Mecca.

Calama compared with other cities

Compared with Santiago, Santiago Metropolitan, Chile, 1,235 km away, the Qibla in Calama is turned 6.0° further anticlockwise (75.8° against 81.8°), and Mecca is 405 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Antofagasta (201 km), prays towards 76.8°, a difference of 1.0°.

Across the 24 cities in Chile on this site, the Qibla ranges from 74.3° in Arica to 92.9° in Punta Arenas, a spread of 18.6°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Chile.

Qibla in cities near Calama

• Antofagasta76.8° · 201 km
• Iquique75.1° · 280 km
• Arica74.3° · 465 km
• Copiapó78.6° · 564 km
• Coquimbo80.3° · 868 km
• Viña del Mar82.0° · 1,203 km