Qibla direction in Delicias

How to face the Qibla in Delicias

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 37.8° towards east: the result is the bearing of 37.8°. 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 Delicias.

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 Delicias, 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 Delicias to Mecca points to 92.9° (east), a full 55.1° away from the true Qibla of 37.8° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 1,315 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Delicias first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 37.8° obtained? From the coordinates of Delicias (28.1901° N, 105.4701° 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 Delicias to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 13,358 km from Delicias as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 13,068 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 16 h 13 min, although most pilgrims from Delicias connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Delicias run 9 hours behind Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Delicias rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Delicias

From Delicias the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 37.8°, 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 15:29.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Delicias (03:18 and 03:27 local time), so they cannot be used here. Instead, on 13 January 2027 at 15:29 and 28 November 2027 at 15:09 the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba, and every vertical shadow in Delicias points straight to Mecca.

Delicias compared with other cities

Compared with Mexico City, 1,168 km away, the Qibla in Delicias is turned 8.8° further anticlockwise (37.8° against 46.6°), and Mecca is 288 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Chihuahua City (78 km), prays towards 37.1°, a difference of 0.7°.

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 Delicias

• Chihuahua City37.1° · 78 km
• Cuauhtémoc36.5° · 139 km
• Parral38.1° · 141 km
• Torreón40.5° · 358 km
• Ciudad Juárez35.7° · 404 km
• Navojoa34.6° · 411 km