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 arc that begins in the west with the major islands of Sumatra and Java continues eastward through a chain of smaller islands known in English as the Lesser Sunda Islands and in Indonesian as the Nusa Tenggara ("Southeastern Islands"). From west to east, the major Lesser Sunda Islands are Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and Timor. Indonesia is divided into 38 provinces (provinsi) and the provinces are subdivided into county units called regencies (kabupaten). This page includes lighthouses of Sumbawa, an island united with Lombok as West Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Barat) Province. Sumbawa is about 240 km (150 mi) long and very mountainous in terrain and irregular in shape. It is separated from Lombok to the west by the Alas Strait. Teluk Saleh, a large embayment on the north coast, nearly cuts the island in half. On the east the Sape Strait separates Sumbawa from the smaller island of Komodo (famous for its giant lizards) and the much larger island of Flores. The population of Sumbawa is about 1.6 million. 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. It's also worth knowing that the word for an island is nusa in Balinese and gili in the Sasak language spoken on Lombok and in western Sumbawa. 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. DSI numbers are Indonesian light list numbers as listed by the Benoa Navigation District. 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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![]() Tanjung Pekat Light, Calabai, February 2019 Google Maps photo by Fēng Guó Jǐng |
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![]() Tanjung Mata Light, Labangka Benoa Navigation District photo |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: South Sulawesi | East: Flores | West: Lombok
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted January 10, 2009. Checked and revised November 3, 2024. Lighthouses: 43. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.