Brazil administers four groups of small islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, including several of the most remote and least well known islands of the world. This pages lists the lighthouses built on those islands. Only one of the islands, Fernando de Naronha, is inhabited and accessible to tourists. The Portuguese word for a lighthouse is farol, plural faróis. In Brazilian use the word farol generally applies to all light towers, regardless of size and whether they are enclosed structures or not. In Portuguese ilha is an island, ilhéu is an islet, cabo is a cape, ponta is a promontory or point of land, rocha is a rock, recife is a reef, baía is a bay, estreito is a strait, rio is a river, and porto is a port or harbor. Active lighthouses in Brazil are owned by the navy (Marinha do Brasil) and maintained by the Centro de Auxílios à Navegação Almirante Moraes Rego (CAMR) in the Diretoria de Hidrografia e Navegacão (DHN). ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. BR numbers are from the official Brazilian Lista de Faroís. Admiralty numbers are from volume G of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 110.
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![]() Fernando de Noronha Light, October 2012 ex-Panoramio photo copyright Thiago Haussig; used by permission |
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![]() Ilha Rata Light, Fernando de Noronha, November 2007 Flickr Creative Commons photo by Márcio Cabral de Moura |
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![]() Ponta da Calheta Range Lights, Ilha da Trindade Brazilian Navy First District photo (no longer online) |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining page: West: Northeastern Brazil
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted February 11, 2008. Checked and revised May 26, 2023. Lighthouses: 8. Site copyright 2023 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.