Qibla direction in Gangāpur

How to face the Qibla in Gangāpur

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards west and move a further 0.5° towards south: the result is the bearing of 269.5°. The direction is close to due west, which makes it easy to remember.

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 Gangāpur to Mecca points to 261.5° (west), 8.0° away from the correct 269.5°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 11 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 26.4725° N, 76.7174° 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 Gangāpur to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 3,778 km from Gangāpur as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 3,719 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 4 h 57 min, although most pilgrims from Gangāpur connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Gangāpur run 2.5 hours ahead of Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Gangāpur rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Gangāpur

On 180 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Gangāpur 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 1 April 2027 it happens at 17:46 local time.

On 173 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 1 April 2027 at 06:58.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Gangāpur: at 14:48 and 14:57 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Gangāpur compared with other cities

Compared with New Delhi, 244 km away, the Qibla in Gangāpur is turned 2.9° further clockwise (269.5° against 266.6°), and Mecca is 57 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Hindaun (43 km), prays towards 269.3°, a difference of 0.2°.

Across the 442 cities in India on this site, the Qibla ranges from 256.8° in Srinagar to 294.3° in Nagercoil, 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 India.

Qibla in cities near Gangāpur

• Hindaun269.3° · 43 km
• Sawai Madhopur270.0° · 62 km
• Tonk269.5° · 99 km
• Jaipur268.4° · 105 km
• Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India268.8° · 113 km
• Dhaulpur269.7° · 118 km