China, officially Zhōngguó (中华), has been the largest and most dominant nation of East Asia since it was unified under a single emporer in 221 BCE. However imperial power waned during the nineteenth century, allowing European colonial powers to enter the country. Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, and Russia all established outposts in China. European engineers developed Chinese ports and built the first Western lighthouses, many of which remain in service today. After the imperial government was overthrown in 1912 China entered a long period of instability. The civil war between republican and Communist forces began in 1927. In 1937 Japan invaded, occupying large parts of China and starting a war that merged with World War II. After that war ended in 1945 civil war resumed and by 1949 the Communists achieved control of the entire mainland, the republicans retreating to the island of Taiwan. Today the People's Republic of China (PRC) has a lengthy coastline, many large harbors, and a large number of lighthouses. The country is divided into 22 provinces and 11 other province-level regions of various special types. The province of Fújiàn (formerly spelled Fukien or Fuchien) is located on the southeastern coast of the country facing Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait. The coastline is rugged and irregular with many islands and reefs threatening unwary navigators. Many bays cut deeply into the mainland; Sānshā Bay is the largest of these embayments. Fújiàn is divided into nine prefectural-level cities, six of them facing the coast. This page includes lighthouses of the prefectural level city of Níngdé in the northern part of the province adjacent to Zhèjiāng. There are many languages and dialects spoken in China, but Standard Chinese, often called Mandarin, is official. The pīnyīn system for transliterating Standard Chinese into Latin characters is now the international standard but some locations continue to be known also under the spellings of older transliteration systems. The Chinese word for a lighthouse is dēngtǎ (灯塔). In Standard Chinese jiāo (formerly chiao) is a reef or rock, jiǎo is a cape or headland, dǎo (tao) is an island; yǔ (tsu) or tuózi ("lump") is a small island, hǎi is a sea, wān is a bay, hǎixiá is a strait, hé or jiāng is a river, hékǒu ("river mouth") is an estuary, and gǎng (kang) is a harbor. Lighthouses in China are maintained by the PRC Maritime Safety Administration. The administration is organized in four regional administrations with district offices in the major ports. All the lights on this page are maintained by the Fúzhōu MSA office, which is part of the Shànghǎi Region. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. CN numbers are the MSA List of Lights (助航标志表) numbers. Admiralty numbers are from volume P of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
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Fúdǐng Lighthouses
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![]() Huángqí Light, Fúdǐng County PRC Maritime Safety Administration Shànghǎi Region photo |
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Xiápǔ County Lighthouses
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![]() Xiǎoyúshān Light, Sānshā Peninsula PRC Maritime Safety Administration Shànghǎi Region photo |
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![]() Jiàbēi Light, Dōngchōng, August 1998 PRC MSA Shànghǎi Region photo |
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![]() Wūyǔ Light, Xīyáng Islands, March 1997 PRC MSA Shànghǎi Region photo |
Sānshā Bay Lighthouses
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Adjoining pages: North: Zhèjiāng: Ruì'ān Area | South: Fúzhōu
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Posted July 7, 2008. Checked and revised March 26, 2025. Lighthouses: 49. Site copyright 2025 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.