Argentina (officially the Argentine Republic, República Argentina) is the second largest country of South America and has a population approaching 50 million. Located on the southern east coast of the continent, Argentina has a lengthy coastline on the South Atlantic Ocean, extending from the warm waters of the Río de la Plata to the edge of the cold Southern Ocean. Colonized by Spain in the mid 1500s, Argentina secured its independence and territorial integrity in series of uprisings between 1810 and 18i6. Several decades of controversy and conflict established the organization of the country and its borders with its neighbors to the north. Between 1878 and 1884 Argentina expanded its control southward, occupying the region of Patagonia east of the Andes Mountains. Argentina is a federation of 23 provinces (provincias) plus the autonomous capital city of Buenos Aires. This page includes lighthouses of the central part of mainland Argentina's South Atlantic coast in Río Negro Province. Río Negro include the northern section of Argentine Patagonia. Its coast faces the San Mateias Gulf, a large embayment of the South Atlantic. The province is divided into counties called departments (departamentos). The Spanish word for a lighthouse is faro; smaller lighthouses are often called balizas (beacons). In Spanish isla is an island, cabo is a cape, punta is a promontory or point of land, péñon is a rock, arrecife is a reef, bahía is a bay, ría is an estuary or inlet, estrecho is a strait, río is a river, and puerto is a port or harbor. Active lighthouses in Argentina are owned by the Argentine Navy and managed by the Navy's Servicio de Hidrografía Naval (SHN). ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume G of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 110, except for lights of the Beagle Channel, which are from Publication 111. The official Argentine light list, Faros y Señales Marítimas, is not available online.
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Buenos Aires | South: Chubut
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Posted December 2003. Checked and revised September 22, 2025. Lighthouses: 12. Site copyright 2025 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.