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. Mainland France is divided into 12 administrative regions (régions); in addition the island of Corsica is a region, as are five former French colonies overseas. The regions are subdivided into departments (départements). This page includes lighthouses of the west coast of France in the département of Charente-Maritime. Located in the historic provinces of Saintonge and Aunis, this coast lies between the Loire River and the Gironde estuary and faces the Bay of Biscay (known in France as the Golfe de Gascogne), the basin of the Atlantic between the peninsulas of Brittany and Spain. Unlike the rocky and deeply-indented coast to the north this is a relatively low, sandy coast. The historic port and naval base of La Rochelle is an important destination for shipping in this area. The southern end of the region borders the north side of the Gironde estuary, which leads to the major port of Bordeaux. Charente-Maritime was formerly part of the region of Poitou-Charentes. In 2016 the former regions of Aquitaine, Limousin, and Poitou-Charentes were merged to form the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine (New Aquitaine). 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. Charente lighthouses fall under the Bordeaux office, DIRM Sud-Atlantique. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume D of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 113.
|
|
Gironde Estuary Lighthouses (see also Aquitaine)
|
|
![]() Le Chay Light, Royan, June 2021 Instagram photo by Alexandra Vollette |
|
|
Île d'Oléron Lighthouses
|
|
Rochefort and La Rochelle Lighthouses
|
![]() Feu Postérieur, Port-des-Barques, January 2023 Google Maps street view |
|
|
|
Île de Ré Lighthouses
|
|
|
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: La Vendée | South: Aquitaine
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted October 25, 2005. Checked and revised October 7, 2024. Lighthouses: 39. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.