Qibla direction in A Coruña

How to face the Qibla in A Coruña

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 13.0° towards south: the result is the bearing of 103.0°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 13° off.

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

This is a place where maps mislead badly: a straight line on a flat map from A Coruña to Mecca points to 118.6° (south-east), a full 15.6° away from the true Qibla of 103.0° (east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 46 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from A Coruña first heads east, and that is the direction to face.

The angle on this page is the initial bearing of the great circle from 43.3714° N, 8.3960° W 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 A Coruña to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 5,053 km from A Coruña as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 4,821 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 6 h 27 min, although most pilgrims from A Coruña connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in A Coruña run 2 hours behind Mecca in winter and 1 hour behind 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 A Coruña rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in A Coruña

On 220 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of A Coruña while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in May (31 days); for example, on 15 March 2027 it happens at 08:48 local time.

On 121 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 May (31 days), for instance on 1 May 2027 at 20:42.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in A Coruña: at 11:18 and 11:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

A Coruña compared with other cities

Compared with Madrid, 509 km away, the Qibla in A Coruña is turned 1.0° further anticlockwise (103.0° against 104.0°), and Mecca is 454 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Ourense (123 km), prays towards 102.5°, a difference of 0.6°.

Across the 49 cities in Spain on this site, the Qibla ranges from 84.6° in Santa Cruz de Tenerife to 112.0° in Girona, a spread of 27.4°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Spain.

Qibla in cities near A Coruña

• Ourense102.5° · 123 km
• Vigo101.6° · 129 km
• Oviedo105.2° · 206 km
• Gijón105.6° · 221 km
• León, Castille and León, Spain104.7° · 245 km
• Salamanca, Castille and León, Spain102.9° · 349 km