Qibla direction in Greeley

How to face the Qibla in Greeley

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 35.1° towards east: the result is the bearing of 35.1°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “north” would be off by more than 30°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Greeley.

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 Greeley, 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 Greeley to Mecca points to 98.8° (east), a full 63.7° away from the true Qibla of 35.1° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 1,620 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Greeley first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 35.1° obtained? From the coordinates of Greeley (40.4233° N, 104.7091° 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 Greeley to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 12,220 km from Greeley as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 11,911 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 14 h 53 min, although most pilgrims from Greeley connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Greeley run 10 hours behind Mecca in winter and 9 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 Greeley rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Greeley

From Greeley the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 35.1°, 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 14:28.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Greeley (03:18 and 03:27 local time), so they cannot be used here. Instead, on 13 January 2027 at 14:29 and 28 November 2027 at 14:09 the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba, and every vertical shadow in Greeley points straight to Mecca.

Greeley compared with other cities

Compared with Washington D.C., 2,365 km away, the Qibla in Greeley is turned 21.5° further anticlockwise (35.1° against 56.6°), and Mecca is 1,587 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Fort Collins (36 km), prays towards 34.7°, a difference of 0.4°.

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 Greeley

• Fort Collins34.7° · 36 km
• Boulder34.7° · 66 km
• Denver35.0° · 80 km
• Centennial35.1° · 95 km
• Colorado Springs35.3° · 177 km
• Pueblo35.6° · 241 km