Qibla direction in Kaliningrad

How to face the Qibla in Kaliningrad

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards south and move a further 31.3° towards east: the result is the bearing of 148.7°. 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 Kaliningrad.

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 Kaliningrad to Mecca points to 156.1° (south-east), 7.5° away from the correct 148.7°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 8 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 54.7064° N, 20.5110° 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 Kaliningrad to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 4,039 km from Kaliningrad as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 3,712 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 15 min, although most pilgrims from Kaliningrad connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Kaliningrad run 1 hour behind Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Kaliningrad rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Kaliningrad

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Kaliningrad 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 10:25 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Kaliningrad 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 Kaliningrad: at 11:18 and 11:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Kaliningrad compared with other cities

Compared with Moscow, 1,088 km away, the Qibla in Kaliningrad is turned 27.7° further anticlockwise (148.7° against 176.4°), and Mecca is 217 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Pskov (594 km), prays towards 162.2°, a difference of 13.5°.

Among the 158 cities in Russia on this site, Kaliningrad has the smallest Qibla bearing; the largest is 305.3° in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy. Across the country the direction varies by 156.6°.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Russia.

Qibla in cities near Kaliningrad

• Pskov162.2° · 594 km
• Velikiye Luki165.0° · 656 km
• Smolensk166.9° · 740 km
• Veliky Novgorod166.9° · 782 km
• Kolpino166.2° · 825 km
• Saint Petersburg165.9° · 826 km