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. Sulawesi (Celebes) is a major island in the northern part of the country. Shaped like an artistically drawn letter K, Sulawesi consists mostly of four narrow peninsulas. The Makassar Strait separates Sulawesi from Kalimantan (Borneo) to the west. The Celebes Sea is north of the island, the Molucca Sea is on the northeast, the Banda Sea is to the southeast, and the Flores Sea is on the south. Makassar, also called Ujung Pandang, is the major port. Indonesia is divided into 38 provinces (provinsi) and the provinces are subdivided into county units called regencies (kabupaten). This page covers the west side of Sulawesi including the province of West Sulawesi and the west coast of Central Sulawesi Province. On 28 September 2018 a magnitude 7.5 earthquake caused severe damage to the southern half of the Minahasa Peninsula and swamped the port of Palu by a tsunami. Information was scarce on damage to the lighthouses of this area. 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. 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, whwre available, are the Indonesian light list numbers. Admiralty numbers are from volumes F and Q of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
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![]() Teluk Palu Light, Donggala, January 2017 ex-Radar Sulteng Online photo by Muhammed |
Sulawesi Barat (West Sulawesi) Province Lighthouses
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![]() Tanjung Rangasa (Cape Mandar) Light, Majene, July 2021 ex-Google Maps photo by Muhammad Ridwan |
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Sulawesi Tengah (Central Sulawesi) Province West Coast Lighthouses
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![]() Pulau Tuguan Light, Strait of Makassar, August 2019 Google Maps photo by Sabar Petualangan |
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![]() Pulau Kabetan Light, Tolitoli unattributed photo from identitastolitoli.com (no longer online) |
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Information available on lost lighthouses: Notable faux lighthouses: |
Adjoining pages: North: Northern Sulawesi | East: Northeastern Sulawesi | South: South Sulawesi Mainland | West: Eastern Kalimantan
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Posted December 18, 2008. Checked and revised June 15, 2024. Lighthouses: 48. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.