The Republic of Indonesia has been independent since 1945, after having been the Dutch East Indies for more than 350 years. It is a huge country, stretching along both sides of the Equator for more than 46 degrees of longitude (roughly 5100 km or 3200 miles). Comprised of some 17,000 islands (more than 6000 inhabited islands), it has hundreds of major aids to navigation. The island arc that begins in the west with the major islands of Sumatra and Java continues eastward through a chain of smaller islands known in English as the Lesser Sunda Islands and in Indonesian as the Nusa Tenggara ("Southeastern Islands"). From west to east, the major Lesser Sunda Islands are Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and Timor. Indonesia is divided into 38 provinces (provinsi) and the provinces are subdivided into county units called regencies (kabupaten). This page includes lighthouses of Rote and West Timor in East Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Timur) Province. The islands of Rote and Timor are located east of Sumba and southeast of Flores. More than 700 languages are spoken in Indonesia. The official national language, Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), was standardized from a form of Malay that served as a lingua franca across the archipelago. In Indonesian a lighthouse is a mercusuar or a menara suar. Tanjung is a cape, ujung is a headland or point of land, bukit is a hill, sungai is a river, kuala or muara is an estuary or river mouth, pulau is an island, karang is a reef, batu is a rock, laut is a sea, selat is a strait, teluk is a bay, pelabuhan is a harbor, and labuhan is a port. It's also worth knowing that the word for an island is nusa in Balinese and gili in the Sasak language spoken on Lombok and in western Sumbawa. Aids to navigation in Indonesia are operated and maintained by the Directorate of Marine Navigation within the Directorate General of Sea Transportation. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume Q of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
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Rote Lighthouses
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![]() New (left) and old Pulau Ndana Lights, Rote Ngao Regency, March 2024 Google Maps street view by Julian Saathop |
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![]() Baa Light, Rote Ndao, September 2020 ex-Google Maps photo by Batjo Kaluku |
West Timor Lighthouses (see also Timor Leste)
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![]() Kupang Light, West Timor, October 2020 ex-Google Maps photo by Palti Laitera |
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![]() Tanjung Motamasin Light, West Timor, December 2017 ex-Google Plus photo by Defi Setiawan |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Solor and Alor Islands | East: Timor Leste | West: Sumba and Savu
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted January 10, 2009. Checked and revised December 4, 2024. Lighthouses: 31. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.