Qibla direction in Port Saint Lucie

How to face the Qibla in Port Saint Lucie

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 33.8° towards north: the result is the bearing of 56.2°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “east” would be off by more than 30°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Port Saint Lucie.

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 Port Saint Lucie, 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 Port Saint Lucie to Mecca points to 93.1° (east), a full 36.9° away from the true Qibla of 56.2° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 577 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Port Saint Lucie first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 56.2° obtained? From the coordinates of Port Saint Lucie (27.2939° N, 80.3503° 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 Port Saint Lucie to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 11,607 km from Port Saint Lucie as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 11,382 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 14 h 09 min, although most pilgrims from Port Saint Lucie connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Port Saint Lucie run 8 hours behind Mecca in winter and 7 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 Port Saint Lucie rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Port Saint Lucie

From Port Saint Lucie the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 56.2°, 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 16:33.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Port Saint Lucie (05:18 and 05:27 local time), so they cannot be used here. Instead, on 13 January 2027 at 16:29 and 28 November 2027 at 16:09 the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba, and every vertical shadow in Port Saint Lucie points straight to Mecca.

Port Saint Lucie compared with other cities

The Qibla here is practically the same as in Washington D.C. (56.6°), and Mecca is 973 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, West Palm Beach (71 km), prays towards 56.5°, 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 Port Saint Lucie

• West Palm Beach56.5° · 71 km
• Palm Bay55.9° · 86 km
• Coral Springs56.4° · 114 km
• Fort Lauderdale56.6° · 132 km
• Pembroke Pines56.5° · 144 km
• Miami56.6° · 170 km