The Lighthouse Directory

Welcome to the Lighthouse Directory, providing information and links for more than 24,500 of the world's lighthouses. Follow the Directory's X (ex-Twitter) feed for the latest in lighthouse news and Directory updates. Latest update June 22, 2024.

This week the pages for Western Sulawesi in Indonesia, Northern Chukotka in Russia, the Boryeong Area in South Korea, Northwest England in the U.K., the Odra River in Poland, Central Algeria, Eastern Andalusia in Spain, Bangladesh, Nunavut in Canada, Connecticut in the U.S.A., Northern Brazil, the Haugesund Area of Rogaland County in Norway, the Kitakyūshū Area of Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan, and Northwestern Anatolia in Turkey have been checked and revised with improved information and many new photos.

The Directory's pages for Ukraine describe the lighthouses as they existed before the start of the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia. No changes in the descriptions will be made until there is a stable agreement that stops the fighting. Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, including Crimea, are identified provisionally as East Ukraine. Similarly the Directory's page for Gaza describes the lighthouses as they existed before the start of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.

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 comments on lighthouses in Aveiro, Portugal, and to Jim Smith for his comments on last week's revisions.

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He Saki Light, Moji-ku, Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka, Japan, June 2024
Instagram photo by babaken223

A Month of Lighthouse News:

  • June 28. The Coast Guard Auxiliary announces five tour dates in July and August for the Ned's Point Lighthouse in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. The first date in July 6.
  • June 27. Fundraising for restoration of the Frankfort North Pier Lighthouse in Michigan has been slow so far, but community support is increasing.
  • June 27. On Saturday, June 29, the Firelands Symphony Orchestra will present a free pops concert at the Marblehead Lighthouse in Ohio.
  • June 24. Exterior restoration of the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse in Door County, Wisconsin, is going well and should conclude by the end of July.
  • June 22. Yesterday ownership of the Beavertail Lighthouse in Rhode Island was officially transferred to the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.
  • June 21. A photography group in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is producing a calendar to help raise funds to repair and repaint the privately-owned Kenosha North Pier Lighthouse.
  • June 20. The popular St. Mary's Lighthouse in northeast England is closing until mid September as the lighthouse and other buildings are painted and repaired.
  • June 17. Today is the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the relocation of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina. The largest lighthouse ever relocated intact, it moved 2900 ft (884 m) in 23 days.
  • June 16. Warrenpoint and Kilkeel libraries in County Down, Northern Ireland, will host a special exhibition of photographs of the iconic Haulbowline Lighthouse, which celebrates its 200th birthday in September.
  • June 15. The Coast Guard says the privately-owned Hog Island Lighthouse in Rhode Island is unsound and its crews can no longer enter it to maintain the light and foghorn.
  • June 14. The Pigeon Point Lighthouse in California is wrapped in a protective covering as workers prepare to remove lead-based paint from the interior and exterior of the tower.
  • June 13. The New York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation grants $50,000 toward restoration of the Barcelona Lighthouse in the far west of the state.
  • June 13. In England the Port of Tyne will begin a £250,000 restoration of the Herd Groyne Lighthouse in South Shields next week. The restoration is aided by a £100,000 grant from the Barbour Foundation.
  • June 12. Crews are working carefully around a birds nest as they repair the storm-damaged bell house at the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse in Maine.
  • June 10. Now owned by a Friends group, the Seacow Head Lighthouse in Prince Edward Island will open to visitors of the first time June 24 and will be open daily for the rest of the summer.
  • June 10. At the Wood Island Lighthouse in Maine volunteers are working to save the boathouse heavily damaged by a winter storm. The lighthouse opens July 3 for the summer season.
  • June 8. This weekend is the Spring Door County Lighthouse Festival in Wisconsin. The Sherwood Point Lighthouse, usually closed, is open and offering a foghorn presentation.
  • June 7. The Old Point Loma Lighthouse in San Diego, California, is closed through the end of August for exterior restoration and repainting.
  • June 7. In Bermuda repairs to the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse are stalled because the only crane in the country that can reach the top of the tower is also out of service.
  • June 7. In England the Port of Tyne Authority has submitted plans to repair the South Shields Lighthouse, which lost its dome to Storm Babet last October.
  • June 6. Scientists from Ohio State University and Ohio Sea Grant are offering Science Day presentations on Lake Erie's ecosystem and wildlife at the South Bass Island Lighthouse on Fridays and Saturdays through the end of July. Tours of the lighthouse are included.
  • June 5. A recent $20,000 donation by Georgia Power aids the ongoing $1.7 million restoration of the Tybee Island Lighthouse in Georgia. The lighthouse will be repainted this month as the project nears its end.
  • June 4. The U.S. General Services Administration has recovered the previously-sold Ontanagon Breakwater (Michigan) and Superior Entry (Wisconsin) Lighthouses and is reoffering them through the NHLPA process.
  • June 3. Good news from Estonia: The historic Keri Lighthouse, on an island in the Gulf of Finland, has undergone a three-year, €1.5 million renovation to restore it to its former glory.
  • June 2. Ownership of the Prudence Island Lighthouse in Rhode Island is transferred to the Prudence Conservancy under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.
  • June 2. The Ship Island Lighthouse replica on the waterfront of Gulfport, Mississippi, will be dedicated June 17 to honor the late mayor George Schloegel.
  • June 1. The Buffalo Lighthouse in New York has reopened to tours; it was closed in 2020, 2021, and 2023 due to Covid concerns and winter storm damage to its walkway.
  • May 31. Lighthouse Digest has decided to add the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse in New York to the Doomsday List due to increasing concern for the safety of its foundation.
  • May 31. Another Doomsday List candidate: The Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse in Delaware is closed to tours permanently due to concerns about the stability of the breakwater it stands on.
  • May 30. Dredging of Barden Inlet provides sand for the beach protecting the Cape Lookout Lighthouse in North Carolina.
  • May 30. In Connecticut Norwalk's annual oyster/cocktail party June 8 will benefit the Sheffield Island Lighthouse.
  • May 30. In Port Washington, Wisconsin, aldermen approve applying for a grant that would pay 80% of the estimated $2.8 million cost of restoring the Port Washington Breakwater lighthouse.
  • May 29. Lightship Overfalls, in Lewes, Delaware, honored as one of 100 must-see historic sites listed by Time magazine.
  • May 29. A new Canadian postage stamp should attract more tourism to the Point Prim Lighthouse in Prince Edward Island.


Fenerbahçe Light, İstanbul, Turkey, January 2020
Google Maps photo by ferhatbaltali

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.


Old and new Tanjung Pasangkayu Lights, Pasangkayu, West Sulawesi, Indonesia, October 2023
Google Maps street view

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.


Hodo Hang Light, Boryeong, Chungcheongnam, South Korea, June 2017
Google Maps street view by Sangpil Lee

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.


Bidston Hill Light, Wirral, Merseyside, England, U.K., September 2022
Instagram photo by Andrew Broddle


Raduń Range Front Light, Police, Poland, June 2023
Google Maps photo by Tomek Krajewski

Articles about lighthouses:

Online Light Lists

Special Resources


Cap Caxine Light, Algiers, Algeria, April 2024
Google Maps photo by marabout ski


Old and new Torre del Mar Lights, Torre del Mar, Málaga, Spain, April 2020
Instagram photo by amazingshots_lighthouse


Cox's Bazar Light, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, January 2024
Google Maps photo by Shahadat Hossain


Sentry Island Light, Arviat, Nunavut, Canada, February 2021
Google Maps photo by Werner Müller


New London Ledge Light, New London, Connecticut, U.S.A., January 2023
Google Maps photo by ClaussPhoto

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.


Salinópolis Light, Salinopolis, Pará, Brazil, September 2022
Google Maps photo by Marcelo Cielo


Utsira Light, Utsira, Rogaland, Norway, October 2023
Instagram photo by tormsk

Anadolu Light, Anadolufeneri, İstanbul, Turkey, August 2022
Google Maps photo by Alexander Gazhiev


Perch Rock Light, Wirral, Merseyside, England, U.K., February 2024
Instagram photo by walkswithmydogwirral


Phare de l'Amirauté, Algiers, Algeria, September 2023
Google Maps photo by Bali Photographie


Cabo Sacratif Light, Motril, Granada, Spain, May 2023
Google Maps photo by Gonzalo Gonzalez

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, Papua New Guinea, and Timor Leste

China and Taiwan

Korea (listed clockwise around the peninsula)

Japan (listed clockwise around the main islands)

Asiatic Russia


Five Mile Point Light, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A., November 2022
Google Maps photo by Kristene Heeney

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 2024 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.