Qibla direction in Klaipėda

How to face the Qibla in Klaipėda

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards south and move a further 29.7° towards east: the result is the bearing of 150.3°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at south would leave you about 30° 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 Klaipėda to Mecca points to 157.6° (south), 7.4° away from the correct 150.3°. 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 55.7068° N, 21.1391° 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 Klaipėda to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 4,115 km from Klaipėda as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 3,786 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 20 min, although most pilgrims from Klaipėda connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Klaipėda run 1 hour behind Mecca in winter and the same time as 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 Klaipėda rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Klaipėda

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Klaipėda while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in January (31 days); for example, on 1 January 2027 it happens at 10:30 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Klaipėda 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 Klaipėda: at 12:18 and 12:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Klaipėda compared with other cities

Compared with Vilnius, 286 km away, the Qibla in Klaipėda is turned 5.7° further anticlockwise (150.3° against 156.0°), and Mecca is 220 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Kaunas (197 km), prays towards 154.0°, a difference of 3.7°.

Among the 3 cities in Lithuania on this site, Klaipėda has the smallest Qibla bearing; the largest is 156.0° in Vilnius. Across the country the direction varies by 5.7°.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Lithuania.

Qibla in cities near Klaipėda

• Kaunas154.0° · 197 km
• Vilnius156.0° · 286 km