Qibla direction in Ciudad Juárez

How to face the Qibla in Ciudad Juárez

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 35.7° towards east: the result is the bearing of 35.7°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “north” would be off by more than 30°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Ciudad Juárez.

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 Ciudad Juárez, faces its direction and makes a sincere effort to be accurate. A nearby mosque is a handy reference, because its 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

This is a place where maps mislead badly: a straight line on a flat map from Ciudad Juárez to Mecca points to 94.5° (east), a full 58.8° away from the true Qibla of 35.7° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 1,463 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Ciudad Juárez first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 35.7° obtained? From the coordinates of Ciudad Juárez (31.7202° N, 106.4608° W) 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 Ciudad Juárez to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 13,101 km from Ciudad Juárez as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 12,802 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 15 h 55 min, although most pilgrims from Ciudad Juárez connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Ciudad Juárez run 10 hours behind Mecca in winter and 9 hours 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 Ciudad Juárez rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Ciudad Juárez

From Ciudad Juárez the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 35.7°, so you cannot simply face the sun. The opposite method works instead, as the right-hand column of the table shows.

On 365 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 14:29.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Ciudad Juárez (03:18 and 03:27 local time), so they cannot be used here. Instead, on 13 January 2027 at 14:29 and 28 November 2027 at 14:09 the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba, and every vertical shadow in Ciudad Juárez points straight to Mecca.

Ciudad Juárez compared with other cities

Compared with Mexico City, 1,551 km away, the Qibla in Ciudad Juárez is turned 10.9° further anticlockwise (35.7° against 46.6°), and Mecca is 546 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Chihuahua City (345 km), prays towards 37.1°, a difference of 1.3°.

Across the 99 cities in Mexico on this site, the Qibla ranges from 25.5° in Rosarito to 54.2° in Chetumal, a spread of 28.7°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Mexico.

Qibla in cities near Ciudad Juárez

• Chihuahua City37.1° · 345 km
• Cuauhtémoc36.5° · 371 km
• Delicias37.8° · 404 km
• Nogales31.8° · 427 km
• Hermosillo32.5° · 522 km
• Parral38.1° · 538 km