Qibla direction in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States

How to face the Qibla in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 41.8° towards east: the result is the bearing of 41.8°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “north” would be off by more than 40°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Lincoln, Nebraska, 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 Lincoln, Nebraska, United States to Mecca points to 99.5° (east), a full 57.7° away from the true Qibla of 41.8° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 1,300 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Lincoln, Nebraska, 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 40.8000° N, 96.6670° 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 Lincoln, Nebraska, United States to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 11,766 km from Lincoln, Nebraska, United States as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 11,469 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 14 h 21 min, although most pilgrims from Lincoln, Nebraska, United States connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States run 9 hours behind Mecca in winter and 8 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 Lincoln, Nebraska, United States rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States

From Lincoln, Nebraska, United States the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 41.8°, 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 15:29.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both happen at night in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States (04:18 and 04:27 local time), so they cannot be used here. Instead, on 13 January 2027 at 15:29 and 28 November 2027 at 15:09 the sun is over the point opposite the Kaaba, and every vertical shadow in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States points straight to Mecca.

Lincoln, Nebraska, United States compared with other cities

Compared with Washington D.C., 1,686 km away, the Qibla in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States is turned 14.8° further anticlockwise (41.8° against 56.6°), and Mecca is 1,132 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Omaha (79 km), prays towards 42.3°, a difference of 0.5°.

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 Lincoln, Nebraska, United States

• Omaha42.3° · 79 km
• Topeka42.9° · 212 km
• Kansas City43.8° · 260 km
• Overland Park43.7° · 264 km
• Olathe43.6° · 265 km
• Des Moines44.1° · 271 km