The Lighthouse Directory

Welcome to the Lighthouse Directory, providing information and links for more than 24,700 of the world's lighthouses. Follow the Directory's new Bluesky feed (@lhdirectory.bsky.social) for the latest in lighthouse news and Directory updates. Latest update March 13, 2026.

This week the pages for Western Taiwan, Belgium, the Stockholm Area in Sweden, Mainland Tanzania, Eastern Italy, Northwest Baja California in Mexico, Southern Québec in Canada, Guadeloupe, South Western Australia in Australia, and the Dìnghǎi District in Zhèjiāng Province in China have been checked and revised with improved information and many new photos.

Also in the Directory: A Checklist of Lightships in the world. Included are some 127 ships surviving, restored, abandoned, or recently scrapped.

Special thanks this week to Andreas Köhler for photos of a new lighthouse in Thailand and to Jim Smith for comments on last week's revisions.

GOOGLE SITE SEARCH (of ibiblio.org; include the word "lighthouse" in your search)

 


Fangyuan Light, Fangyuan, Taiwan, September 2024
ex-Instagram photo by Shīwén Sēn

A Month of Lighthouse News:

  • March 12. The St. George Reef Lighthouse is working again after being dark for more than a year. The lighthouse, on a rock off the northern coast of California, is accessible only by helicopter in good weather. Private funding supported several trips for local preservationists.
  • March 10. The historic 1st order Fresnel lens from the Gay Head Lighthouse was lit during a Keeping the Light celebration at its current home, the Martha's Vineyard Museum in Massachusetts.
  • March 10. In Washington state the New Dungeness Daughters of the American Revolution will hold a Trivia Fundraiser March 28 to benefit the roof replacement fund of the New Dungeness Lighthouse.
  • March 10. The Minnesota Historical Society is beginning exterior restoration work at the Split Rock Lighthouse. The project will include replacing damaged masonry and installing sensors to monitor moisture data. It should be completed by June.
  • March 9. The Canadian Coast Guard has announced that the 1894 Jones Island Range Rear Lighthouse in Parry Sound, Ontario, is seriously deteriorated structurally and must be demolished. Nearby residents are organizing an effort to save the lighthouse.
  • March 7. In the far south of New South Wales, Australia, the 1883 Green Cape Lighthouse has been reactivated, using its historic 1st order Fresnel lens with a new LED light source. The light had been shown from a skeletal tower since 1992.
  • March 7. At the Split Rock Lighthouse in Minnesota, "Hard Hat Tours" on March 21-22 will allow visitors to step inside ongoing preservation work inside the historic lighthouse. Reservations are required.
  • March 5. In Michigan Lighthouse Keepers needs to raise another $68,603 to complete its goal of $450,000 for a 2027 project to restore and repaint the brick exterior of the Big Sable Lighhouse.
  • March 2. The Sheboygan Common Council in Wisconsin is expected to vote tonight on applying for ownership of the Sheboygan Breakwater Lighthouse under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. (The story says "purchase" but NHLPA transfers to government agencies are free,)
  • March 1. Guides at the Roker Pier Lighthouse in Sunderland, England, are looking forward to a full season of tours for the first time in three years. Damaged by Storm Babet in October 2023, the lighthouse was closed for nearly two years.
  • February 28. Scaffolding is going up as the $15.2 million restoration of the Cape Lookout Lighthouse in North Carolina gets underway.
  • February 27. The 3-1/2 order Fresnel lens originally in the Grays Reef Lighthouse in Lake Michigan will be coming for display at the McGulpin Point Lighthouse on a 10-year loan from the Coast Guard.
  • February 27. Controversy surrounds a proposal by the Wind Point Village Board in Wisconsin to lease land west of the Wind Point Lighthouse for a parking lot that would also serve an adjoining golf course.
  • February 26. Groundbreaking begins the reconstruction of the second and third keeper's houses at the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse in Florida. The first keeper's house was rebuilt in 2019 and now houses a museum. The work is supported by a $775,000 grant from Brevard County.
  • February 26. In Michgan Tawas Point State Park and the Friends of Tawas Point State Park and Lighthouse invite the public to the park’s first Lantern Walk from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, February 28. Bring your snowshoes.
  • February 25. After ten years of work, off and on, the Drogheda Port Company in County Meath, Ireland, has completed restoration of the 1842 Drogheda North Lighthouse.
  • February 24. Somerset County Council in England confirms it will carry out badly needed repairs to the Burnham-on-Sea Low Lighthouse during the coming year.
  • February 22. The Great Barrier Reef Authority is acting to demolish the dilapidated keeper's houses of the former Pine Islet Lighthouse in northern Queensland, Australia. The historic lighthouse, deactivated in 1985, was relocated to the mainland city of Mackay.
  • February 21. In Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the Public Works Committee will consider a resolution authorizing the city of apply for ownership of the Sheboygan Breakwater Lighthouse under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.
  • February 20. The National Park Service is seeking volunteer keepers for the Au Sable Lighthouse on Lake Superior in Upper Michigan.
  • February 20. The keeper's house museum at the Seul Choix Lighthouse, also in Upper Michigan, is getting a much-needed new roof.
  • February 19. The $19.2 million restoration of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina will extend through 2026 to address cracks found in the cast iron supports of the gallery.
  • February 18. In Shelburne, Nova Scotia, the Sandy Point Recreation Group needs to raise $100,000 for urgently needed repairs to the Sandy Point Lighthouse.


1907 Heist Range Rear Light, Zeebrugge, Belgium, January 2025
Google Maps photo by Dirk Van Acker

About this site
Founded in 1999 (during the relocation of North Carolina's Cape Hatteras lighthouse), the Lighthouse Directory is a tool for research and study concerning lighthouses and efforts to preserve those lighthouses. The Directory provides a brief compilation of basic data for each lighthouse with links to other reliable information available on the Internet. Since the addition of the Hainan page in February 2009 listings cover the entire world. However, this doesn't mean the Directory is complete, because new information continues to come to light.

I'm glad to hear from site visitors, especially if you have lighthouse news or photos of rarely-visited lighthouses.

The Directory has over 30,000 links, and all of them were appropriate and legitimate when they were added. Occasionally, because a web site is hacked or a URL is captured, a link leads not to legitimate information but to an inappropriate site, such as a source of pornography or malicious software. Please let me know if this happens, and I will remove the offending link immediately.

This site is hosted by ibiblio.org, one of the largest free information databases online, maintained as a public service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.


Söderarm Light, Åland Sea, Stockholm County, Sweden, September 2024
Google Maps photo by Johan Fryklund

Definitions: What is a lighthouse?
To begin with some basics, an aid to navigation or navaid is a structure placed on or near navigable water to provide visual guidance to mariners. A beacon is an aid to navigation that is fixed in place (that is, not floating). A lighted beacon or lightbeacon is a beacon displaying a light, while an unlit beacon is called a daybeacon. Often, a lighted beacon is simply called a light.

Everyone agrees that a lighthouse is a lightbeacon that is, in some sense, a substantial building. There is some diagreement among lighthouse fans as to whether there should be restrictions on the design of the building, but standard dictionaries in English all have some form of this simple definition: "A lighthouse is a tower carrying a light to guide mariners." Indeed, in many languages the word for a lighthouse translates literally as "light tower" or "fire tower." The Directory adopts this definition: a lighthouse is a tower, at least 4 m (13 ft) tall and more substantial in cross section than a post, mast, or pillar, carrying or designed originally to carry a light to guide mariners.

Many lighthouses are enclosed buildings with walls of stone, brick, wood, concrete, metal, or modern composite materials. Many others are open skeletal (framework) towers of cast iron, steel, or wood. The light at the top of some lighthouses is housed in an enclosed lantern, but many lighthouses have the light exposed with no lantern. Historically lighthouses were powered with a variety of fuels, but today nearly all are solar powered.

The Directory includes listings of certain lights and other sites of interest to lighthouse fans that aren't lighthouses by this definition. The titles of those listings are enclosed in square brackets [...]. In addition, lighthouses destroyed or demolished since 2000 continue to be listed; their names are preceded by the hashtag #.

A light station is a collection of buildings including a lighthouse, staff quarters, and supporting structures such as a fog signal building housing a foghorn or fogbell, a boathouse, an oil house to store fuel for the light, and so on. A century ago all lighthouses required lightkeepers to maintain and operate the light, fog signal, and other equipment. Today practically all aids to navigation operate automatically, but some light stations have resident caretakers, still called keepers, to maintain the property and guard against vandalism.


Ras Mkumbi Light, Mafia Island, Tanzania, May 2023
Google Maps photo by Gilbert Mushi

The lighthouse listings
Dates shown for lighthouses are the dates when the light was first displayed; this may be later than the construction date in some cases. A station establishment date, when listed, is the date when a light was first displayed at or near the same location. Data concerning the characteristics (colors and flash patterns) of lights comes mostly from the U.S. Coast Guard Light List for U.S. lighthouses and from the U.S. NGA List of Lights or available national light lists for lighthouses in other countries.

The focal plane height of a light is the height above the surface of the water at which the light is displayed. (The level of the water surface is usually "mean high water," the level at an average high tide.) In the listings, "focal plane" refers to the focal plane height. A lantern of a lighthouse is a room or structure that actually encloses the light.

The tower heights of the lighthouses themselves should be considered approximate. Different sources use different methods for measuring tower heights, and those heights may actually change due to changes in ground level at the base of the tower.

I have attempted to determine whether lighthouse sites and towers are open to the public. This information is inferred from whatever sources may be available; it is certainly not guaranteed. Please let me know if this information, or any information in the Directory, is incorrect.

Lighthouse listings are marked with ratings of zero to four stars based on the extent to which the light station is open to visitors. Check the ratings key to interpret these ratings.


Colle Cappucini Light, Ancona, Marche, Italy, October 2025
Google Maps photo by Lara Maino


Tijuana Light, Tijuana, Baja California, May 2022
Google Maps photo by Kyosuke Jin

Articles about lighthouses:

Online Light Lists

Online Navigation Charts

Special Resources


Pilier de Pierre Light, St.-Jean-Port-Joli, Québec, Canada, July 2021
Instagram photo by Marie-Noëlle


Îlet du Gosier Light, Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, November 2024
Gogle Maps photo by Timothée Kroband


Rottnest Island (Wadjemup) Light, Fremantle, Western Australa, Australia, March 2023
Google Maps photo by Sachintha


Dàcàihuāshān Light, Dìnghǎi, Zhōushān, Zhèjiāng, China
Zhèjiāng Culture Ministry photo

Regional, state, and local lighthouse preservation organizations are recognized on each U.S. state page. U.S. organizations interested in lighthouse preservation nationally are:

  • The American Lighthouse Foundation, based in Rockland, Maine. ALF encourages preservation efforts throughout the country and holds preservation leases on more than a dozen New England lighthouses.
  • The United States Lighthouse Society, formerly based in San Francisco, has moved to the Point No Point Lighthouse in Hansville, Washington. USLHS has chapters active in the Chesapeake area, Long Island, Oregon, and Washington, and has been active in supporting preservation in other areas as well. The Society also publishes a respected journal, The Keeper's Log, and has a large collection of historic light lists of U.S. lighthouses.

Lighthouses on the Internet: A Researcher's Guide has replaced the list of links formerly on this page.


Anping Light, Tainan, Taiwan, May 2025
Google Maps street view


Blankenberge Light, Blankenberge, Belgium, August 2025
Google Maps photo by Theo Bisschops

Svartklubben Light, Singö, Stockholm County, Sweden, October 2023
Instagram photo cy Svenska Fyrsällskapet


Outer Makatumbe Light, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2023
InkedIn.com photo by Anthony Parker


Rimini Light, Rimini, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, July 2025
Google Maps street view


Old and new Islas de Todos Santos Lights, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, October 2021
Google Maps photo by Viktor Kampos


Petite-Terre Light, Guadeloupe, October 2024
ex-Google Maps photo by Thierry Marinault

Lighthouses of the Americas

Northeastern United States

Southeastern United States and U.S. Caribbean

Midwestern United States

Western United States and U.S. Pacific Territories

Atlantic Canada and St. Pierre

Interior and Western Canada

Bermuda and the West Indies

Mexico

Central America

South America, Antarctica, South Atlantic Ocean

Lighthouses of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Australia, and Africa

New Zealand and Pacific Islands

Australia

Indian Ocean

Africa

Lighthouses of Europe

Britain and Ireland

France and Monaco

Spain and Portugal

Italy and Malta

Southeastern Europe

Southwestern Russia and Ukraine

Belgium and Netherlands

Germany

Inland Central Europe

Denmark, Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland

Norway (listed south to north)

Sweden (listed south to north)

Poland and the Baltic States

Finland

Northwestern Russia (listed southwest to northeast)

Lighthouses of Asia

Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and Caspian Sea

Arabia, Iran and Pakistan

India

Southeast Asia

Philippines

Indonesia

China and Taiwan

Korea (listed clockwise around the peninsula)

Japan (listed clockwise around the main islands)

Asiatic Russia


Cape Naturaliste Light, Dunsborough,Western Australia, Australia, February 2022
Google Maps photo by Andrew Dann

Thanks to:

Hundreds of lighthouse fans around the world have enriched this site with their assistance, information, suggestions, and corrections. For a long time I tried to maintain a list of these many friends and contacts, but it has grown too long (and too out of date) to display here. However, I must recognize the late Michel Forand for his suggestions and corrections touching essentially every page of this work, and extend thanks to Jeremy D'Entremont, Ted Sarah, Klaus Huelse, and Andreas Köhler, who have followed the development of the Directory for years. More recently Jim Smith has read nearly every page carefully, correcting errors and suggesting useful additions. Each of them has contributed information and support in vital ways, and the Directory would be much less useful without their participation.

In addition to Michel Forand, I want to recognize the contributions of two other experts on lighthouse history who have passed in recent years: Terry Pepper, the Executive Director of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association (GLLKA), and Tim Harrison, the founding editor of Lighthouse Digest magazine. Both made useful and supportive comments on the Directory.

Formalities

Written by:

Russ Rowlett, Retired Adjunct Professor of Mathematics and Professor of Education
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

You are welcome to email the author (rowlett@email.unc.edu) with comments and suggestions.

All material in The Lighthouse Directory is copyright 2026 by Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Many images are presented by permission of their copyright holders, as noted under the image.

Permission is granted to copy portions of the Directory for personal use and study, but all other rights are reserved. You are welcome to make links to this page or to any page of the Directory, provided you credit the source and do not present the work as your own.

Please do not copy the contents of any page of the Directory to another site. This is an infringement of copyright, and it also deprives your users of the benefit of improvements and corrections made to the page. Everyone has permission to link to this page or to any page of the Directory.

The information contained in the directory is as accurate as I can make it; please notify me if you find any errors. Neither the author nor the University of North Carolina assumes any liability for uses made of the information presented by this web site.