Qibla direction in Ufa

How to face the Qibla in Ufa

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards south and move a further 26.5° towards west: the result is the bearing of 206.5°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at south would leave you about 26° 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 Ufa, faces its direction and makes a sincere effort to be accurate. Any of the mosques of Ufa is a handy reference, because the 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

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Ufa to Mecca points to 200.3° (south), 6.2° away from the correct 206.5°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 5 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.

How is the figure of 206.5° obtained? From the coordinates of Ufa (54.7431° N, 55.9678° E) 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 Ufa to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 3,944 km from Ufa as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 3,626 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 08 min, although most pilgrims from Ufa connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Ufa run 2 hours ahead of Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Ufa rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Ufa

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Ufa 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 15:14 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Ufa 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 Ufa: at 14:18 and 14:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Ufa compared with other cities

Compared with Moscow, 1,165 km away, the Qibla in Ufa is turned 30.1° further clockwise (206.5° against 176.4°), and Mecca is 122 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Sterlitamak (123 km), prays towards 207.2°, a difference of 0.7°.

Across the 158 cities in Russia on this site, the Qibla ranges from 148.7° in Kaliningrad to 305.3° in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, a spread of 156.6°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Russia.

Qibla in cities near Ufa

• Sterlitamak207.2° · 123 km
• Salavat207.3° · 151 km
• Oktyabrsky202.7° · 163 km
• Neftekamsk203.1° · 184 km
• Al'met'yevsk200.7° · 234 km
• Zlatoust211.8° · 240 km