The Lighthouse Directory

Welcome to the Lighthouse Directory, providing information and links for more than 24,600 of the world's lighthouses. Follow the Directory's new Bluesky feed (@lhdirectory.bsky.social) for the latest in lighthouse news and Directory updates. Latest update April 26, 2025.

This week the pages for the Faroe Islands, Denmark's West Coast, the Göteborg Area in Sweden, Gabon, São Tomé and Principe, Tuscany in Italy, South Central Vietnam, Alaska in the U.S.A., Northwestern Nova Scotia in Canada, the Caribbean Coast of Mexico, Mauritius, the Oki Islands of Shimane Prefecture in Japan, Quánzhōu in Fújiàn Province of China, the Nias Islands in Indonesia, the Pechenga Area of Murmansk Oblast in Russia, and Hansan Town in South Korea 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 Airdrie Kinkaid for comments and photos of several lighthouses in Western Australia and to Jim Smith for his comments on last week's revisions.

GOOGLE SITE SEARCH (of ibiblio.org) 

 


Pointe aux Caves Light, Port Louis, Mauritius, March 2024
Instagram photo by Noeriena Hendricks

A Month of Lighthouse News:

  • April 28. In Michigan the Sable Point Lighthouse Keepers Association is seeking volunteer one-week keepers to staff the 1876 White River Lighthouse during the summer season.
  • April 24. The Stratford Point Lighthouse in Connecticut has been listed for transfer to a nonprofit or governmental owner through the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. It's likely the Town of Stratford will be interested in owning this very accessible lighthouse.
  • April 22. The Point Lookout Lighthouse in Maryland has been rededicated after seven years and $5 million invested by the state in restoring the building and developing exhibits. The lighthouse will open for tours next month, schedule to be announced.
  • April 20. The Braddock Point Lighthouse on Lake Ontario west of Rochester, New York, is for sale for $1.495 million. This lighthouse was deactivated officially in 1954 but has been a private aid to navigation since 1996.
  • April 20. The Two Harbors Lighthouse in Minnesota will be able to open its B&B for the season in May while continuing to raise funds needed to repair damage from a boiler failure during frigid winter weather.
  • April 18. The Split Rock Lighthouse in Minnesota will be closed May 5-21 during work on the walking paths and reconstruction of the viewing platform. The visitor center and gift shop will remain open during this work.
  • April 17. The Lorain Lighthouse in Ohio has a new LED-based exterior lighting system that floodlights the lighthouse in various colors.
  • April 12. A new safety railing will be installed on the gallery of the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse in Bermuda. The gallery has been closed since a man died falling from the gallery on January 14.
  • April 9. A €1.6 million project, funded by an EU grant, will restore the original (1897) Punta de Teno Lighthouse in Tenerife, Canary Islands. The restored building will include a café and visitor center. The old lighthouse has been abandoned since 1976.
  • April 6. A $2 million project at the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse in Door County, Wisconsin, is building replicas of the station's barn and summer kitchen, as well as restoration work inside the lighthouse.
  • April 6. At the Beaver Head Lighthouse on Beaver Island, Lake Michigan, the HGTV program "Bargain Block" is helping volunteers in restoring the keeper's house. Earlier restoration work has already opened the tower for climbing.
  • April 2. The state-funded Michigan Lighthouse Assistance Program grants $60,000 toward restoration of the Charlevoix South Pier Lighthouse on Lake Michigan and $46,466.67 to assist the ongoing restoration of the Gull Rock Lighthouse in Lake Superior.
  • April 1. A new rotating beacon is ready for installation at the Two Harbors Lighthouse in Minnesota. It will replace an aerobeacon that stopped rotating several years ago.
  • March 29. Newly uncovered issues will likely delay completion of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse restoration in North Carolina. The problems involve iron supports for the gallery that were initially hidden by brickwork.


Saigō Misaki Light, Dōgo, Oki Islands, Shimane, Japan, September 2022
Instagram photo by peeeyama_lighthouse

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.


Yǒngníngzuǐ Light, Shíshī, Quánzhōu, Fújiàn
PRC Maritime Safety Administration Xiàmén Office photo

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.


Pulau Bojo Light, South Nias, North Sumatra, Indonesia, August 2019
Google Maps photo by Bahtera Nasution

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.


Vaidagubskiy Light, Pechenga District, Murmansk, Russia, , August 2019
Google Maps photo by Jan Majer


Somaemuldo Light, Hansan, Tongyeong, South Korea, December 2023
Instagram photo by Soonbong Kwon

Articles about lighthouses:

Online Light Lists

Online Navigation Charts

Special Resources


Nólsoy
Light, Nólsoy, Faroe Islands, June 2023
Google Maps photo by Bitta


Vinga Light, Göteborg, Västra Götaland, Sweden, June 2022
Google Maps photo by Anders Nyholm


Port Gentil Light, Port Gentil, Gabon, January 2009
Wikimdia Creative Commons photo by AchilleT


Livorno Light, Livorno, Tuscany, Italy, March 2023
Google Maps photo by Chionne Tonson

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.


Kê Gà Light, Bình Thuận, Vietnam, October 2019
Google Maps photo by Tuan Nguyen Hoang


Five Finger Islands Light, Petersburg Borough, Alaska, U.S.A., January 2023
Facebook photo posted by Five Finger Lighthouse

Coldspring Head Light, Northport, Nova Scotia, Canada, August 2023
Google Maps photo by Robert LeBlanc


Punta Celeraín Light, Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico, Agust 2021
Instagram photo by marrrrpv


São Sebastião Light, São Tomé, São Tomé and Principe, April 2022
Google Maps photo by L. T.


Hirtshals Light, Hjørring, Nordjylland, Denmark, April 2023
Instagram photo by zweite_heimat_danmark


Forte Stella Light, Portoferraio, Elba, Tuscany, Italy, August 2023
Google Maps photo by B D B

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

China and Taiwan

Korea (listed clockwise around the peninsula)

Japan (listed clockwise around the main islands)

Asiatic Russia


Mũi Đại Lãnh (Cap Varella) Light, Phú Yên, Vietnam, June 2020
Google Maps photo by Khanh Do

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.