Qibla direction in Baia Mare

How to face the Qibla in Baia Mare

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards south and move a further 32.2° towards east: the result is the bearing of 147.8°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “south” would be off by more than 30°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Baia Mare.

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 Baia Mare to Mecca points to 153.4° (south-east), 5.5° away from the correct 147.8°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 4 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 47.6573° N, 23.5681° 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 Baia Mare to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 3,260 km from Baia Mare as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 2,941 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 4 h 20 min, although most pilgrims from Baia Mare connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Baia Mare 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 Baia Mare rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Baia Mare

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Baia Mare 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 10:12 local time.

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

Baia Mare compared with other cities

Compared with Bucharest, 409 km away, the Qibla in Baia Mare is turned 1.5° further anticlockwise (147.8° against 149.3°), and Mecca is 408 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Satu Mare (55 km), prays towards 146.7°, a difference of 1.1°.

Across the 20 cities in Romania on this site, the Qibla ranges from 141.8° in Timișoara to 154.8° in Iași, a spread of 13.0°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Romania.

Qibla in cities near Baia Mare

• Satu Mare146.7° · 55 km
• Cluj-Napoca147.0° · 99 km
• Oradea144.4° · 142 km
• Târgu Mureş148.5° · 145 km
• Sibiu147.0° · 211 km
• Piatra Neamţ152.2° · 224 km