Qibla direction in Waco

How to face the Qibla in Waco

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards north and move a further 43.6° towards east: the result is the bearing of 43.6°. 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 Waco.

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 Waco, 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 Waco to Mecca points to 94.7° (east), a full 51.1° away from the true Qibla of 43.6° (north-east). The map line keeps one compass heading and is 1,100 km longer than the great-circle route. Because the Earth is a sphere, the shortest way to Mecca from Waco first heads north-east, and that is the direction to face.

How is the figure of 43.6° obtained? From the coordinates of Waco (31.5493° N, 97.1467° 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 Waco to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 12,552 km from Waco as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 12,274 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 15 h 16 min, although most pilgrims from Waco connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Waco 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 Waco rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Waco

From Waco the sun never rises high in the Qibla direction of 43.6°, 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 15:30.

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

Waco compared with other cities

Compared with Washington D.C., 1,995 km away, the Qibla in Waco is turned 13.0° further anticlockwise (43.6° against 56.6°), and Mecca is 1,919 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Killeen (73 km), prays towards 43.3°, 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 Waco

• Killeen43.3° · 73 km
• Round Rock43.5° · 126 km
• College Station44.5° · 128 km
• Fort Worth43.1° · 132 km
• Arlington43.3° · 132 km
• Dallas43.5° · 141 km