Qibla direction in Athens, Georgia, United States

How to face the Qibla in Athens, Georgia, United States

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards east and move a further 37.0° towards north: the result is the bearing of 53.0°. 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 Athens, Georgia, United States.

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

This is a place where maps mislead badly: a straight line on a flat map from Athens, Georgia, United States to Mecca points to 96.6° (east), a full 43.6° away from the true Qibla of 53.0° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 760 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Athens, Georgia, United States first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

The angle on this page is the initial bearing of the great circle from 33.9610° N, 83.3779° 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 Athens, Georgia, United States to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 11,413 km from Athens, Georgia, United States as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 11,159 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 13 h 56 min, although most pilgrims from Athens, Georgia, United States connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Athens, Georgia, United States 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 Athens, Georgia, United States rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Athens, Georgia, United States

From Athens, Georgia, United States the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 53.0°, 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 16:31.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Athens, Georgia, United States (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 Athens, Georgia, United States points straight to Mecca.

Athens, Georgia, United States compared with other cities

Compared with Washington D.C., 789 km away, the Qibla in Athens, Georgia, United States is turned 3.6° further anticlockwise (53.0° against 56.6°), and Mecca is 780 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Sandy Springs (92 km), prays towards 52.3°, a difference of 0.7°.

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 Athens, Georgia, United States

• Sandy Springs52.3° · 92 km
• Atlanta52.3° · 96 km
• South Fulton52.2° · 127 km
• Chattanooga51.4° · 214 km
• Columbia, South Carolina, United States54.5° · 216 km
• Columbus, Georgia, United States52.2° · 224 km