Qibla direction in Vellore

How to face the Qibla in Vellore

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards west and move a further 18.3° towards north: the result is the bearing of 288.3°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at west would leave you about 18° 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 Vellore to Mecca points to 282.8° (west), 5.5° away from the correct 288.3°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 8 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 12.9184° N, 79.1326° 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 Vellore to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 4,269 km from Vellore as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 4,339 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 31 min, although most pilgrims from Vellore connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Vellore 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 Vellore rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Vellore

On 79 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Vellore 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 May 2027 it happens at 12:38 local time.

On 164 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 March (31 days), for instance on 15 February 2027 at 07:57.

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

Vellore compared with other cities

Compared with New Delhi, 1,757 km away, the Qibla in Vellore is turned 21.7° further clockwise (288.3° against 266.6°), and Mecca is 434 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Ranipet (22 km), prays towards 288.3°, the same bearing to the tenth of a degree.

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 Vellore

• Ranipet288.3° · 22 km
• Chittoor287.9° · 33 km
• Ambur288.5° · 47 km
• Kanchipuram288.3° · 62 km
• Tiruvannamalai289.1° · 77 km
• Tirupati287.4° · 86 km