Qibla direction in Salatiga

How to face the Qibla in Salatiga

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards west and move a further 24.6° towards north: the result is the bearing of 294.6°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at west would leave you about 25° off.

Facing the Qibla is a condition of the prayer. Whoever prays inside the Sacred Mosque faces the Kaaba itself; whoever is far away, as in Salatiga, faces its direction and makes a sincere effort to be accurate. Any of the mosques of Salatiga is a handy reference, because the prayer rows were aligned when it was built. Once you know the direction at home, a discreet mark on the wall saves you from checking again.

Why a flat map shows a different direction

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Salatiga to Mecca points to 292.5° (north-west), 2.1° away from the correct 294.6°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 12 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.

How is the figure of 294.6° obtained? From the coordinates of Salatiga (7.3319° S, 110.4928° E) and of the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E), spherical trigonometry gives the starting bearing of the great circle joining them. Mosque architects and astronomical Qibla tables rely on exactly the same calculation.

Distance from Salatiga to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 8,338 km from Salatiga as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 8,445 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 10 h 19 min, although most pilgrims from Salatiga connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Salatiga run 4 hours ahead of Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Salatiga rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Salatiga

On 223 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Salatiga 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 March 2027 it happens at 12:31 local time.

On 140 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 January (31 days), for instance on 1 January 2027 at 08:33.

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

Salatiga compared with other cities

Compared with Jakarta, 421 km away, the Qibla in Salatiga is turned 0.6° further anticlockwise (294.6° against 295.2°), and Mecca is 418 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Ungaran (23 km), prays towards 294.5°, the same bearing to the tenth of a degree.

Across the 140 cities in Indonesia on this site, the Qibla ranges from 290.2° in Merauke to 295.5° in Pelabuhanratu, a spread of 5.3°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Indonesia.

Qibla in cities near Salatiga

• Ungaran294.5° · 23 km
• Magelang294.7° · 34 km
• Semarang294.5° · 39 km
• Klaten294.6° · 43 km
• Surakarta294.5° · 45 km
• Purwodadi Grobogan294.4° · 54 km