Prayer Times in Lanzhou, China

Praying in Lanzhou

Lanzhou sits at 36.06° N, 103.83° E, and the timetable here is built from that position rather than a national average. The difference between one town and the next is only minutes, but those minutes are the whole of Fajr and Maghrib.

Through the year

Summer and winter look like different timetables entirely in Lanzhou. The times can shift by several hours between the two ends of the year.

Finding the qibla

Face west — roughly 274° on a compass — and you are pointed at the Kaaba. Makkah is around 6,337 kilometres (3,937 miles) away in a straight line. If you are marking a permanent direction in a room, check true north rather than trusting a phone compass alone.

A walk through today's times

The first call comes at 5:56 am, for Fajr. Sunrise at 7:25 am closes that window. After the sun peaks, Dhuhr is prayed at 12:48 pm, and Asr at 4:32 pm. Sunset brings Maghrib at 6:11 pm; Isha is the last, at 7:41 pm. That is some 10 hours and 46 minutes between the sun coming up and going down.

If you are fasting

Suhoor ends at Fajr — 5:56 am today — and the fast breaks at Maghrib, 6:11 pm. Around 12 hours and 15 minutes without food or water today. The monthly table further down shows the window widening or narrowing day by day, which helps when planning meals a week ahead.

A quirk of the timezone

True midday in Lanzhou arrives some 48 minutes after what the clock reads. Hence Dhuhr at 12:48 pm, with the rest of the afternoon following along behind it. It is not an error — timezones are drawn for administrative convenience, not astronomical accuracy.

A note on the method used

The underlying method is Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah. Dhuhr, Asr and Maghrib are largely settled across methods; Fajr and Isha are where authorities part company. For Asr this page uses the Hanafi position — later in the day than the majority view. A small gap between this page and your nearest masjid is nothing to worry about; go with theirs.

Common questions