The nation of Japan, known in Japanese as Nihon or Nippon (日本), occupies an archipelago off the east coast of Asia. The four main islands are Hokkaidō in the north, Honshū (the largest) in the center, Shikoku in the south, and Kyūshū in the southwest. The country includes thousands of other islands of all sizes; among them the Ryūkyū (Nansei) Islands are a long chain extending to the southwest and including the large island of Okinawa, and the Nanpō Islands are another long chain extending south into the Pacific Ocean. Much of Japan is mountainous but the coastal regions are densely populated and urbanized; the country's population is about 126 million. Hokkaidō, the northernmost of the four main islands of Japan, is very roughly triangular in shape, facing north on the Sea of Okhotsk, southeast on the Pacific Ocean, and west on the Sea of Japan. It is separated from Honshū to the south by the Tsugaru Strait and from Russian Sakhalin to the north by the La Pérouse or Sōya Strait. Japan is divided into 47 prefectures. The entire island of Hokkaidō forms a single prefecture, making it by far the largest of the 47. The prefecture is divided into nine administrative regions, called subprefectures in English. The subprefectures of Hokkaidō are similar in size to the prefectures in the other main islands. This page covers lighthouses of northern Hokkaidō, including the mainland portion of Sōya Subprefecture and all of Okhotsk Subprefecture (called Abashiri Subprefecture until 2010). This coast faces northeast on the Sea of Okhotsk. At the western end, the Sōya (La Pérouse) Strait separates the northern tip of Hokkaidō from the southern tip of the Russian island of Sakhalin. Sōya Subprefecture also includes the islands of Rishiri and Rebun, located in the Sea of Japan southwest of Wakkanai. In Japanese, the word for a lighthouse is tōdai or toudai (灯台). The words saki and misaki are for capes and headlands, hana ("nose") is a promontory, hantō is a peninsula, shima (also spelled sima or jima) is an island, bae is a reef, iwa or shi is a rocky reef, amase or se is a shoal, wan is a bay, nada is a sound or basin, kaikyō is a strait, kawa is a river, and kō or minato is a harbor. Lighthouses in Japan are operated and maintained by the Japanese Coast Guard's Maritime Safety Agency. The lighthouses of Sōya subprefecture are maintained by the Coast Guard office at Wakkanai, and those of Okhotsk subprefecture by the office at Monbetsu. A note on the Sea of Japan/East Sea controversy: The Directory takes no side in any international dispute; it makes use of the terminology, names, and spellings as they currently exist in each area covered. The sea between Japan and Korea is called the Sea of Japan on the pages for Japan and the East Sea on the pages for Korea. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. JCG numbers are the Japanese Coast Guard's light list numbers. Admiralty numbers are from volume M of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112. |
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Sōya Subprefecture Lighthouses
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![]() East Breakwater West Head Light, Wakkanai photo copyright Selector Jonathon Photography; used by permission |
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![]() Sōya Gyoko West Breakwater Light, Wakkanai photo copyright Selector Jonathon Photography; used by permission |
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Okhotsk Subprefecture Lighthouses
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![]() Shiretoko Misaki Light, Shiretoko National Park, October 2008 Wikimedia Creative Commons photo by Myroad000x |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Southern Sakhalin | East: Eastern Hokkaidō | South: Northwestern Hokkaidō | West: Rishiri and Rebun
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Posted June 8, 2006. Checked and revised August 10, 2024. Lighthouses: 43. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.