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. Japan is divided into 47 prefectures. This page lists lighthouses of the western section of the Japanese prefecture of Hiroshima, located near the southwestern end of the main island of Honshū. Hiroshima Prefecture face south on the Seto Inland Sea (Seto Naikai), a network of sounds and channels separating Honshū from Shikoku. The Kure area faces Aki Bay (Aki Nada), one of the larger basins of the western Seto Inland Sea. Hirishima is at the head of Hiroshima Bay (Hiroshima Wan), a broad northward inlet of the sea. Both cities are major ports. The city of Hiroshima was destroyed by an atomic bomb on 6 August 1945, in the last days of World War II. Several lighthouses destroyed in the explosion have been rebuilt. 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. On Honshū there is at least one Coast Guard Section Office in each prefecture, often two or more. Hiroshima Prefecture has three offices, at Onomichi, Kure and Hiroshima. This page includes the lighthouses of the Kure and Hiroshima Coast Guard Districts. 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.
|
|
Kure Coast Guard District Lighthouses
|
|
|
|
|
![]() Kashima Kō Breakwater Light, Kashima, Kure Japanese Coast Guard Kure Office photo |
|
Hiroshima Coast Guard District Lighthouses
|
|
|
|
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: East: Onomichi Area | South: Northern Ehime | West: Eastern Yamaguchi
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted January 25, 2007. Checked and revised March 18, 2025. Lighthouses: 40. Site copyright 2025 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.