Qibla direction in Visalia

How to face the Qibla in Visalia

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 22.3° towards east: the result is the bearing of 22.3°. A small error of a few degrees is forgiven by most scholars, but aiming simply at north would leave you about 22° 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 Visalia, faces its direction and makes a sincere effort to be accurate. A nearby mosque is a handy reference, because its 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

This is a place where maps mislead badly: a straight line on a flat map from Visalia to Mecca points to 96.1° (east), a full 73.8° away from the true Qibla of 22.3° (north). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 2,283 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Visalia first heads north, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 22.3° obtained? From the coordinates of Visalia (36.3302° N, 119.2921° W) 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 Visalia to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 13,229 km from Visalia as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 12,901 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 16 h 04 min, although most pilgrims from Visalia connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Visalia run 11 hours behind Mecca in winter and 10 hours 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 Visalia rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Visalia

From Visalia the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 22.3°, so you cannot simply face the sun. The opposite method works instead, as the right-hand column of the table shows.

On 365 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 January (31 days), for instance on 1 January 2027 at 13:27.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Visalia (02:18 and 02:27 local time), so they cannot be used here. Instead, on 13 January 2027 at 13:29 and 28 November 2027 at 13:09 the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba, and every vertical shadow in Visalia points straight to Mecca.

Visalia compared with other cities

Compared with Washington D.C., 3,700 km away, the Qibla in Visalia is turned 34.3° further anticlockwise (22.3° against 56.6°), and Mecca is 2,595 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Fresno (63 km), prays towards 21.7°, a difference of 0.6°.

Across the 244 cities in the United States on this site, the Qibla ranges from 17.2° in Hillsboro to 350.9° in Anchorage, a spread of 333.7°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for United States.

Qibla in cities near Visalia

• Fresno21.7° · 63 km
• Bakersfield22.8° · 109 km
• Santa Maria, California, United States21.4° · 185 km
• Lancaster23.8° · 209 km
• Modesto20.3° · 210 km
• Salinas19.8° · 215 km