Qibla direction finder
Pick your city or use your location to see which way the Qibla is, in degrees from true North, and how far Makkah is.
Your location
Or pick a city
Or enter coordinates
Runs on your phone. Nothing is uploaded or saved. Your location is only read when you tap the button, and only your chosen city is remembered.
Getting a good compass reading
- Calibrate first: move the phone slowly in a figure-8 a few times, then hold it flat, screen up.
- Keep away from metal and magnets: cars, steel desks, speakers, laptops, and magnetic phone cases or mounts can push the needle off by many degrees.
- Phone compasses point to magnetic North. In the UAE, magnetic North is only about 2° east of true North, so the difference is small, but the heading is always approximate.
- No compass sensor (like on a laptop)? Use a normal compass: hold it flat, turn until its needle points to N, then face the number of degrees shown here, counting clockwise from North.
Important: For an exact direction in a mosque or new building, follow the mosque's marked Qibla or the official authority.
How the direction is worked out
The Qibla is the direction of the shortest path over the Earth's surface to the Kaaba in Makkah, the "great circle" route.
On a flat map a straight line from the UAE to Makkah looks like it points one way, but the Earth is round. The tool uses the standard initial great-circle bearing from your point to the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E).
0° is North, 90° East, 180° South and 270° West, counted clockwise. From the UAE the Qibla is about 257° to 262°: a little south of due west.
The distance is the great-circle distance (haversine formula) using the Earth's mean radius of 6,371 km. From Dubai it is about 1,630 km.
Sources: Kaaba coordinates 21.4225° N, 39.8262° E. Initial bearing θ = atan2(sin Δλ · cos φ₂, cos φ₁ · sin φ₂ − sin φ₁ · cos φ₂ · cos Δλ) and the haversine distance, standard spherical trigonometry formulas (as in Ed Williams' Aviation Formulary). Magnetic declination for the UAE (about 2° E) from the World Magnetic Model (WMM2025, NOAA and the British Geological Survey). For prayer matters, the official reference in the UAE is the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments (awqaf.gov.ae). This is a helper, not religious guidance: follow the marked Qibla in mosques and the official authority.