116.3° ESE
A compass needle points to magnetic north, which in Marseille lies 2.8° east of true north, so on a regular compass you face 113.5° instead of 116.3°.
Open the live Qibla compass- Bearing calculated to 0.1°
- Location never leaves your device
- Free, with no ads
How to face the Qibla in Marseille
- With your phone: tap Open the live Qibla compass, allow location (and, on iPhone, motion access), then turn slowly until the Kaaba on the dial reaches the mark at the top.
- With a regular compass: hold it flat, turn it until the needle sits on N, then face 113.5° on the dial. That is the magnetic bearing; reading 116.3° off a magnetic compass would leave you about 2.8° off.
- With the map: open the live compass, switch to Map and follow the gold line from your position to the Kaaba. It does not use the compass at all.
If 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.
Why the Qibla from Marseille points east-southeast
Marseille is 4,002 km (2,487 miles) from the Kaaba, and measured clockwise from true north the Qibla here is 116.3°, east-southeast. A straight line on a flat Mercator map would point 127°, southeast. That map stretches distances more the further you are from the equator, so the line that looks straight on it is not the shortest route. The shortest route over the globe is the great circle, and its starting direction from Marseille is the 116.3° bearing; the great-circle bearing is about 11° to the left of the flat-map line. Across the Western European cities on this site the Qibla runs from 116.3° in Marseille to 136.7° in Vienna.
Nearby cities
- Lyon, France118.6° ESE · 278 km away
- Barcelona, Spain110.6° ESE · 338 km away
- Milan, Italy123.6° ESE · 388 km away
- Zurich, Switzerland125.0° SE · 517 km away
- Paris, France119.2° ESE · 660 km away
See every city in Europe, or use the Qibla Finder for your exact spot.
Learn to recite it properly, with a live teacher
One-to-one Quran lessons for children and adults — tajweed, memorisation and reading, scheduled around you.
Book a free trial class- 1-to-1 tutors
- Male & female teachers
- Any time zone
- Ages 4+


