Qibla Direction in Melbourne, Victoria

How to face the Qibla in Melbourne

1. 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.
2. With a regular compass: hold it flat, turn it until the needle sits on N, then face 266.9° on the dial. That is the magnetic bearing; reading 278.8° off a magnetic compass would leave you about 12.0° off.
3. 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 Melbourne points west

Melbourne is in the Southern Hemisphere at 37.8° S, and Makkah is in the Northern Hemisphere at 21.4° N, so the path to the Kaaba crosses the equator on its way. Measured clockwise from true north, the Qibla from Melbourne is 278.8°, west. On a flat Mercator map a straight line points 301°, west-northwest; the great circle, the shortest route over the globe, is the one the bearing follows, and from Melbourne the great-circle bearing is about 22° to the left of the flat-map line. The Kaaba is 12,741 km (7,917 miles) away. Across Australia and New Zealand the Qibla runs from 256.4° in Wellington to 295.4° in Perth.

Nearby cities

• Canberra, Australia277.8° W · 467 km away
• Adelaide, Australia283.3° WNW · 654 km away
• Sydney, Australia277.5° W · 713 km away
• Gold Coast, Australia279.8° W · 1,343 km away
• Brisbane, Australia280.3° W · 1,374 km away

See every city in Australia and New Zealand, or use the Qibla Finder for your exact spot.

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