Calculated for the centre of Boston, 42.3601° N, 71.0589° W.
A compass needle points to magnetic north, which in Boston lies 13.9° west of true north, so on a regular compass you face 74.4° instead of 60.4°.
Open the live Qibla compassIf a phone compass looks wrong, move the phone in a figure-eight a few times, away from laptops, speakers, car dashboards and magnetic cases, and hold it flat while you turn.
On a flat wall map, Makkah looks east-southeast of Boston: a straight line drawn on a Mercator map points 103°. The earth is round, though, and the shortest path over its surface, a great circle, leaves Boston at 60.4° and arcs north over the Atlantic, reaching about 50° N before it turns down toward Arabia. That shorter, curved route is why the Qibla here is east-northeast, about 43° to the left of the flat-map line.
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