France (officially the French Republic, République française) has coasts facing south on the Mediterranean Sea, west on the open Atlantic Ocean, and north on the English Channel (La Manche in French). Long a leader in lighthouse design, France has scores of famous and historic lighthouses. And it was a French engineer and physicist, Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1837), who invented the powerful and beautiful lenses used in lighthouses around the world. Normandy is a former duchy in the northwest of France, named for the Vikings ("Northmen") who invaded and settled it in the 9th century. William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England in 1066 and through the end of the 12th century the dukes of Normandy were also kings of England. Metropolitan (European) France is divided into 13 administrative regions (régions) and the regions are divided into departments (départements). In 2016 the former administrative regions of Basse-Normandie and Haute-Normandie were combined to form a unified Normandie region. This page lists lighthouses of the former Basse-Normandie (Lower Normandy), region; this is the western portion of the ancient Duchy of Normandy, including the two coastal départements of Manche and Calvados, the Cotentin Peninsula, and the port of Cherbourg. This is also the Normandy of the D-Day invasion of 6 June 1944, and the entire region saw some of the fiercest fighting of World War II in Western Europe. Very few of the lighthouses in the area escaped damage and many were destroyed. The French word for a lighthouse, phare, is often reserved for the larger coastal lighthouses; a smaller light or harbor light is called a feu (literally "fire," but here meaning "light") or a balise (beacon). The front light of a range (alignement) is the feu antérieur and the rear light is the feu postérieur. In French île is an island, cap is a cape, pointe is a promontory or point of land, roche is a rock, récife is a reef, baie is a bay, estuaire is an estuary or inlet, détroit is a strait, rivière is a river, and havre is a harbor. Aids to navigation in France are maintained by the Bureau des Phares et Balises, an agency of the Direction des Affaires Maritimes (Directorate of Maritime Affairs). The Directorate has four regional offices (called Directions Interrégionale de la Mer, or DIRM) at Le Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Marseille. Lights in Normandie are managed by the DIRM Nord-Atlantique Manche Est - Mer du Nord (DIRM-MEMN) at Le Havre. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. FR numbers are from the French light list Feux et signaux de brume, where known. Admiralty numbers are from volume A of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 114.
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Département de la Manche Lighthouses
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![]() Fort de l'Ouest Light, Cherbourg, July 2022 photo copyright Capt. Peter Mosselberger; used by permission |
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![]() Pointe de Saire Light, Réville, July 2022 photo copyright Capt. Peter Mosselberger; used by permission |
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![]() Morsalines Light, Morsalines, July 2022 photo copyright Capt. Peter Mosselberger; used by permission |
Département du Calvados Lighthouses
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: East: Haute-Normandie | South: Ille-et-Vilaine| West: Guernsey, Jersey
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted July 6, 2006. Checked and revised December 29, 2024. Lighthouses: 50. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.