Qibla direction in Heidelberg

How to face the Qibla in Heidelberg

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 37.4° towards south: the result is the bearing of 127.4°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “east” would be off by more than 30°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Heidelberg.

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 Heidelberg to Mecca points to 138.4° (south-east), 11.0° away from the correct 127.4°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 18 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 49.4077° N, 8.6908° 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 Heidelberg to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 4,144 km from Heidelberg as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 3,854 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 23 min, although most pilgrims from Heidelberg connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Heidelberg 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 Heidelberg rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Heidelberg

On 311 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Heidelberg 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 08:56 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Heidelberg 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 Heidelberg: at 11:18 and 11:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Heidelberg compared with other cities

Compared with Berlin, 479 km away, the Qibla in Heidelberg is turned 9.3° further anticlockwise (127.4° against 136.7°), and Mecca is 14 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Mannheim (19 km), prays towards 127.2°, a difference of 0.2°.

Across the 63 cities in Germany on this site, the Qibla ranges from 124.8° in Freiburg im Breisgau to 136.7° in Berlin, a spread of 11.9°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Germany.

Qibla in cities near Heidelberg

• Mannheim127.2° · 19 km
• Heilbronn127.8° · 49 km
• Karlsruhe126.6° · 49 km
• Darmstadt127.8° · 52 km
• Pforzheim126.8° · 58 km
• Stuttgart127.3° · 78 km