Detect viewport orientation, if orientation is Portrait display alert message advising user of instructions

if(window.innerHeight > window.innerWidth){
    alert("Please use Landscape!");
}

jQuery Mobile has an event that handles the change of this property... if you want to warn if someone rotates later - orientationchange

Also, after some googling, check out window.orientation (which is I believe measured in degrees...)

EDIT: On mobile devices, if you open a keyboard then the above may fail, so can use screen.availHeight and screen.availWidth, which gives proper height and width even after the keyboard is opened.

if(screen.availHeight > screen.availWidth){
    alert("Please use Landscape!");
}

You can also use window.matchMedia, which I use and prefer as it closely resembles CSS syntax:

if (window.matchMedia("(orientation: portrait)").matches) {
   // you're in PORTRAIT mode
}

if (window.matchMedia("(orientation: landscape)").matches) {
   // you're in LANDSCAPE mode
}

Tested on iPad 2.

David Walsh has a better and to the point approach.

// Listen for orientation changes
window.addEventListener("orientationchange", function() {
  // Announce the new orientation number
  alert(window.orientation);
}, false);

During these changes, the window.orientation property may change. A value of 0 means portrait view, -90 means a the device is landscape rotated to the right, and 90 means the device is landscape rotated to the left.

http://davidwalsh.name/orientation-change