Qibla direction in Lijiang

How to face the Qibla in Lijiang

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards west and move a further 8.3° towards north: the result is the bearing of 278.3°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at west would leave you about 8° 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 Lijiang to Mecca points to 264.4° (west), 13.9° away from the correct 278.3°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 52 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 26.8688° N, 100.2207° E 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 Lijiang to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 6,102 km from Lijiang as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 6,021 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 7 h 41 min, although most pilgrims from Lijiang connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Lijiang run 5 hours ahead of Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Lijiang rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Lijiang

On 138 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Lijiang while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in May (31 days); for example, on 15 April 2027 it happens at 19:15 local time.

On 213 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 May (31 days), for instance on 15 March 2027 at 08:22.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Lijiang: at 17:18 and 17:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Lijiang compared with other cities

Compared with Beijing, 2,081 km away, the Qibla in Lijiang is turned 0.6° further anticlockwise (278.3° against 278.9°), and Mecca is 1,282 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Shangri-La (118 km), prays towards 277.4°, a difference of 0.9°.

Across the 612 cities in China on this site, the Qibla ranges from 249.0° in Tacheng to 286.5° in Suifenhe, a spread of 37.5°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for China.

Qibla in cities near Lijiang

• Shangri-La277.4° · 118 km
• Dali279.2° · 143 km
• Panzhihua279.0° · 152 km
• Xiangcheng279.4° · 160 km
• Lushui278.6° · 179 km
• Baoshan, Yunnan, China279.2° · 222 km