The Republic of Indonesia has been independent since 1945 after having been the Dutch East Indies for more than 350 years. It is a huge country, stretching along both sides of the Equator for more than 46 degrees of longitude (roughly 5100 km or 3200 miles). Comprised of some 17,000 islands (more than 6000 inhabited islands), it has hundreds of major aids to navigation. The island of Java (Jawa in Indonesian) is the heart of the country and home to 57% of the population. In fact, with more than 140 million residents it is the world's most populous island. The national capital, Jakarta, is on the northwestern coast of Java. Indonesia is divided into 38 provinces (provinsi) and the provinces are subdivided into county units called regencies (kabupaten). This page includes lighthouses of the southwestern and western coasts of Java, including the south coast of West Java Province and Banten Province at the west end of island. (West Java Province has two coasts: a north coast facing the Java Sea and a south coast facing the Indian Ocean; the north coast is covered on the Northern Java page.) More than 700 languages are spoken in Indonesia. The official national language, Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), was standardized from a form of Malay that served as a lingua franca across the archipelago. In Indonesian a lighthouse is a mercusuar or a menara suar. Tanjung is a cape, ujung is a headland or point of land, bukit is a hill, sungai is a river, kuala or muara is an estuary or river mouth, pulau is an island, karang is a reef, batu is a rock, laut is a sea, selat is a strait, teluk is a bay, pelabuhan is a harbor, and labuhan is a port. The original Dutch names of historic lighthouses, if known, are shown in curly brackets {}. Aids to navigation in Indonesia are operated and maintained by the Directorate of Marine Navigation within the Directorate General of Sea Transportation ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume Q of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
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Legok Light, Tasikmalaya Regency, April 2015
Google Maps street view |
West Java Province South Coast Lighthouses
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Pangandaran Light, Pangandaran, October 2012 Google Maps photo by Dony Lay |
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Pantai Pamayang Light, Tasikmalaya Regency, July 2019 Google Maps street view |
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Santolo Light, Pantai Santolo, February 2022 Google Maps photo by Herdi Hermawan |
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Banten Province Lighthouses
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Old (left) and new Tanjung Layar Lights, Ujungjaya, August 2006 ex-Panoramio photo copyright Arief Bidyak; permission requested |
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Current Tanjung Layer Light, Ujungjaya, October 2020 ex-Google Maps photo by A.Husen |
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Northern Java | East: Southern Java | West: Lampung, Sumatra
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Posted April 13, 2006. Checked and revised September 8, 2023. Lighthouses: 42. Site copyright 2023 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.