Qibla direction in Pueblo

How to face the Qibla in Pueblo

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 35.6° towards east: the result is the bearing of 35.6°. 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 Pueblo.

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 Pueblo, 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 Pueblo to Mecca points to 97.7° (east), a full 62.1° away from the true Qibla of 35.6° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 1,562 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Pueblo first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 35.6° obtained? From the coordinates of Pueblo (38.2545° N, 104.6091° 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 Pueblo to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 12,412 km from Pueblo as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 12,106 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 15 h 06 min, although most pilgrims from Pueblo connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Pueblo 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 Pueblo rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Pueblo

From Pueblo the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 35.6°, 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 Pueblo (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 Pueblo points straight to Mecca.

Pueblo compared with other cities

Compared with Washington D.C., 2,389 km away, the Qibla in Pueblo is turned 20.9° further anticlockwise (35.6° against 56.6°), and Mecca is 1,779 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Colorado Springs (67 km), prays towards 35.3°, a difference of 0.3°.

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 Pueblo

• Colorado Springs35.3° · 67 km
• Centennial35.1° · 149 km
• Denver35.0° · 168 km
• Boulder34.7° · 204 km
• Greeley35.1° · 241 km
• Fort Collins34.7° · 262 km