Qibla direction in San Luis Río Colorado

How to face the Qibla in San Luis Río Colorado

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 27.7° towards east: the result is the bearing of 27.7°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at north would leave you about 28° 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 San Luis Río Colorado, 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 San Luis Río Colorado to Mecca points to 94.6° (east), a full 66.9° away from the true Qibla of 27.7° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 1,895 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from San Luis Río Colorado first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 27.7° obtained? From the coordinates of San Luis Río Colorado (32.4555° N, 114.7704° 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 San Luis Río Colorado to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 13,444 km from San Luis Río Colorado as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 13,127 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 16 h 19 min, although most pilgrims from San Luis Río Colorado connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in San Luis Río Colorado run 10 hours behind Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of San Luis Río Colorado rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in San Luis Río Colorado

From San Luis Río Colorado the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 27.7°, 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 14:27.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in San Luis Río Colorado (02:18 and 02:27 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 San Luis Río Colorado points straight to Mecca.

San Luis Río Colorado compared with other cities

Compared with Mexico City, 2,127 km away, the Qibla in San Luis Río Colorado is turned 18.9° further anticlockwise (27.7° against 46.6°), and Mecca is 203 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Mexicali (67 km), prays towards 27.0°, 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 San Luis Río Colorado

• Mexicali27.0° · 67 km
• Ensenada26.1° · 184 km
• Tijuana25.5° · 210 km
• Rosarito25.5° · 214 km
• Nogales31.8° · 383 km
• Hermosillo32.5° · 522 km