Share your location to begin. On a phone you can turn and follow the compass; on a desktop, read the line on the map.
Set your location to draw the line to Makkah.
Works in any browser. Your location stays on your device.
Calibrate the magnetometer. Move the device in a figure-eight a few times, away from laptops, speakers, car dashboards and metal desks. Magnetic phone cases are the usual culprit.
Hold it flat. The sensor reads the horizontal field, so a tilted screen gives a drifting number.
No compass hardware? Most desktops and many tablets have none. Switch to the map view — the line runs from your position straight to the Kaaba.
From the USA and Canada the Qibla points northeast, not southeast. That surprises many people, because on a flat wall map Makkah sits east and a little south of North America, so a straight line drawn across the map heads southeast.
The earth is a globe, though, and the Qibla bearing follows the shortest path over its surface, called a great circle. From North America that path leaves heading northeast, arcs up over the Atlantic Ocean and Europe, and comes down to Arabia. Flat maps stretch the far north, so the true shortest route looks bent on them, and the route that looks straight is the longer one.
You can see this for yourself: set your location above, switch to Map and tap See the whole path. The gold line is the great circle the bearing is measured along.
The bearing depends on where you are. The further west you go, the more the Qibla swings toward north: about 58° in New York, about 44° in Minneapolis and under 20° in Seattle and San Francisco. Bearings are measured clockwise from true north, so 0° is north and 90° is east.
| City | Qibla bearing from true north | Compass point | Distance to the Kaaba (miles) |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York, NY | 58.5° | ENE | 6,404 |
| Chicago, IL | 48.7° | NE | 6,926 |
| Houston, TX | 45.5° | NE | 7,813 |
| Los Angeles, CA | 23.9° | NNE | 8,341 |
| Dallas, TX | 43.5° | NE | 7,724 |
| Philadelphia, PA | 57.7° | ENE | 6,484 |
| Washington, DC | 56.6° | ENE | 6,607 |
| Atlanta, GA | 52.3° | NE | 7,147 |
| Detroit, MI | 52.0° | NE | 6,725 |
| Dearborn, MI | 51.9° | NE | 6,730 |
| Minneapolis, MN | 43.8° | NE | 6,982 |
| Jersey City, NJ | 58.5° | ENE | 6,406 |
| Paterson, NJ | 58.4° | ENE | 6,404 |
| Phoenix, AZ | 30.1° | NNE | 8,218 |
| San Francisco, CA | 18.8° | NNE | 8,187 |
| Seattle, WA | 17.6° | NNE | 7,540 |
| Toronto, ON | 54.6° | NE | 6,522 |
| Mississauga, ON | 54.4° | NE | 6,535 |
| Montreal, QC | 58.7° | ENE | 6,213 |
| Calgary, AB | 25.0° | NNE | 7,184 |
See all US cities · See all Canadian cities
Calculated from each city centre with the same great-circle formula this page uses, with the Kaaba at 21.4225° N, 39.8262° E and a mean earth radius of 6,371 km. Your own bearing varies a little across a city, so use the finder above for your exact spot. These are true-north bearings; a magnetic compass points to magnetic north, which in parts of North America is more than 10° away.
Northeast. In the US cities in the table above, the Qibla bearing runs from 17.6° in Seattle to 58.5° in New York, measured clockwise from true north. The further west you are, the closer it is to north. Use the finder at the top of this page for the exact bearing from where you stand.
Because the earth is a globe. The Qibla bearing follows the shortest path to the Kaaba over the earth's surface, called a great circle. From North America that path starts out heading northeast, curves over the Atlantic Ocean and Europe, and then comes down to Makkah. On a flat map the same route looks bent, and a line that looks straight on the map, heading southeast, is a longer route across the globe.
No. Qibla Finder runs in your web browser on a phone, tablet or computer, with nothing to install and no account. On a phone you can also add it to your home screen so it opens like an app. Your location is used in the page and saved only in your own browser.
A phone compass is a magnetic sensor, so metal and magnets nearby throw it off. Laptops, speakers, car dashboards, metal desks and magnetic phone cases are the usual causes. To calibrate it, move the phone in a figure-eight a few times away from those things, then hold it flat and turn slowly. If the reading still looks wrong, use the Map view: it draws the line from your position to the Kaaba without using the compass.
A magnetic compass points to magnetic north, not true north. If you know your local magnetic declination, the + and − buttons on this page adjust the heading for it.
Yes. Open the page in Safari or any iPhone browser, tap Find my Qibla and allow location. The iPhone then asks separately for access to motion and orientation; tap Allow and the live compass starts. If you decline, reload the page to be asked again, or use the Map view. On a device without a working compass, the page still shows the bearing in degrees and the map.
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