Qibla direction in Nice

How to face the Qibla in Nice

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 29.0° towards south: the result is the bearing of 119.0°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 29° 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 Nice to Mecca points to 129.4° (south-east), 10.4° away from the correct 119.0°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 16 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 43.7031° N, 7.2661° 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 Nice to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 3,887 km from Nice as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 3,629 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 04 min, although most pilgrims from Nice connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Nice run 2 hours behind Mecca in winter and 1 hour 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 Nice rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Nice

On 283 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Nice 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 1 February 2027 it happens at 08:21 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Nice during daylight, so the shadow method does not apply here; the left-hand column is the one to use.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Nice: at 11:18 and 11:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Nice compared with other cities

The Qibla here is practically the same as in Paris (119.2°), and Mecca is 609 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Toulon (126 km), prays towards 116.7°, a difference of 2.3°.

Across the 37 cities in France on this site, the Qibla ranges from 111.4° in Brest, Brittany Region, France to 125.3° in Strasbourg, a spread of 13.8°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for France.

Qibla in cities near Nice

• Toulon116.7° · 126 km
• Aix-en-Provence116.7° · 148 km
• Marseille116.3° · 159 km
• Grenoble119.0° · 205 km
• Nîmes115.8° · 234 km
• Montpellier115.0° · 273 km