Qibla direction in Orihuela

How to face the Qibla in Orihuela

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 13.6° towards south: the result is the bearing of 103.6°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at east would leave you about 14° 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

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Orihuela to Mecca points to 115.3° (south-east), 11.7° away from the correct 103.6°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 24 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 38.0848° N, 0.9440° 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 Orihuela to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 4,306 km from Orihuela as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 4,102 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 34 min, although most pilgrims from Orihuela connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Orihuela 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 Orihuela rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Orihuela

On 227 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Orihuela while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in March (31 days); for example, on 1 March 2027 it happens at 08:05 local time.

On 118 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 20:12.

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

Orihuela compared with other cities

The Qibla here is practically the same as in Madrid (104.0°), and Mecca is 293 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Murcia (20 km), prays towards 103.4°, a difference of 0.3°.

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 Orihuela

• Murcia103.4° · 20 km
• Elche104.1° · 29 km
• Alicante104.3° · 50 km
• Cartagena, Murcia, Spain103.0° · 54 km
• Albacete103.9° · 129 km
• Valencia, Spain105.8° · 162 km