Qibla direction in Urgench

How to face the Qibla in Urgench

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards west and move a further 42.6° towards south: the result is the bearing of 227.4°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “west” would be off by more than 40°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Urgench.

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. The simplest check in Urgench is a local mosque: its mihrab and prayer lines already point to the Qibla. See the mosques of Urgench. 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

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Urgench to Mecca points to 221.1° (south-west), 6.3° away from the correct 227.4°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 5 km longer than the true shortest route. The Qibla follows the great circle, the shortest path on the curved Earth, which is why the bearing differs.

The angle on this page is the initial bearing of the great circle from 41.5518° N, 60.6314° E 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 Urgench to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 2,967 km from Urgench as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 2,715 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 3 h 59 min, although most pilgrims from Urgench connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Urgench run 2 hours ahead of Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Urgench rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Urgench

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Urgench while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in January (31 days); for example, on 1 January 2027 it happens at 16:29 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Urgench during daylight, so the shadow method does not apply here; the left-hand column is the one to use.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Urgench: at 14:18 and 14:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Urgench compared with other cities

Compared with Tashkent, 716 km away, the Qibla in Urgench is turned 12.9° further anticlockwise (227.4° against 240.3°), and Mecca is 561 km closer. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Khiva (29 km), prays towards 227.2°, a difference of 0.2°.

Across the 19 cities in Uzbekistan on this site, the Qibla ranges from 224.4° in Nukus to 244.7° in Andijan, a spread of 20.4°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Uzbekistan.

Qibla in cities near Urgench

• Khiva227.2° · 29 km
• Nukus224.4° · 132 km
• Bukhara236.1° · 377 km
• Navoiy236.9° · 431 km
• Qarshi239.4° · 530 km
• Samarkand239.8° · 575 km