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 northern part of Mie prefecture. This portion of Mie includes the coast facing east on Ise Bay southwest of Nagoya as well as Toba City at the western entrance to the bay. North of Toba the Ise Bay coast is mostly urban and industrial. Toba City occupies a rugged and scenic peninsula together with several islands in the mouth of the bay. 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 usually one Coast Guard Section Office in each prefecture, sometimes two; in Mie, because of its lengthy coastline, there are three: at Yokkaichi, Toba, and Owase. The Yokkaichi office maintains the lighthouses of the cities of Yokkaichi, Suzuka, and Tsu; the remaining lighthouses on this page are maintained by the Toba office. Yokkaichi is the largest city in Mie and Tsu is the capital of the prefecture. 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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Ise Bay Lighthouses
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Toba City Lighthouses
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: East: Aichi | South: Southern Mie
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Posted November 5, 2006. Checked and revised January 4, 2025. Lighthouses: 33. Site copyright 2025 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.