The Lighthouse Directory

Welcome to the Lighthouse Directory, providing information and links for more than 24,600 of the world's lighthouses. Follow the Directory's new Bluesky feed (@lhdirectory.bsky.social) for the latest in lighthouse news and Directory updates. Latest update July 19, 2025.

This week the pages for the Western Isles of Scotland in the U.K., the Vorpommern-Rügen District in Germany, Western Algeria, Mallorca and Menorca in the Balearic Islands of Spain, Southwest Thailand, Northern Newfoundland in Canada, Connecticut in the U.S.A., Northern Brazil, Southern Hordaland in Vestland County of Norway, Central Ehime Prefecture in Japan, Turkmenistan, Northeasstern Hǎinán Province in China,,and South Kalimantan Province in Indonesia have been checked and revised with improved information and many new photos.

The Directory's pages for Ukraine describe the lighthouses as they existed before the start of the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia. No changes in the descriptions will be made until there is a stable agreement that stops the fighting. Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, including Crimea, are identified provisionally as East Ukraine.

Also in the Directory: A Checklist of Lightships in the world. Included are some 127 ships surviving, restored, abandoned, or recently scrapped.

Special thanks this week to Andreas Köhler for comments on a lighhouse in Iceland, ,to Capt. Peter Mosselberger for comments on a Tsushima lighthouse in Japan, and to Ian Mills for comments on lights in the Kerguelen Islands..

GOOGLE SITE SEARCH (of ibiblio.org; include the word "lighthouse" in your search)

 


Lobster Cove Head Light, Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada, June 2024
Google Maps photo
by Nadine Robinson

A Month of Lighthouse News:

  • July 19. The North Manitou Light Keepers, who manage the lighthouse in northern Lake Huron, Michigan, will host its annual Lightkeeper Rally and Crib Cruise on Aug. 7, aligning the celebration with National Lighthouse Day.
  • July 19. On Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, some Aquinnah residents are dissatisfied with the new LED beacon at the historic Gay Head Lighthouse.
  • July 18. At the St. John's Point Lighthouse in County Down, Northern Ireland, preservationists are protesting plans to replace the existing lamp with an LED lamp and remove the mercury-bath rotating system. The Fresnel lens will be retained and will still rotate.
  • July 16. Following last year's £900,000 restoration of the St. Mary's Lighthouse in North Tyneside, England, the light station's visitor center has new exhibits and sponsors a range of new activities for visitors.
  • July 16. Meanwhile in South Tyneside, England, a £70,000 repainting of the Souter Lighthouse is getting underway.
  • July 14. Rapid beach erosion, including a major cliff collapse last Saturday, endanger the Robe Lighthouse in South Australia along with a historic red and white obelisk.
  • July 13. The 1894 Lingao Lighthouse, marking the northwest corner of China's island province of Hainan, has been named the Heritage Lighthouse of the Year by IALA, the International Association of Lighthouse Agencies. It is the first Chinese lighthouse with this honor.
  • July 11. In MIchigan Benzie County Commissioners voted to support a $7.4 million shoreline restoration project for the endangered Point Betsie Lighthouse. The lighthouse friends group is managing the project and most of the funding has been provided by the state.
  • July 11. Also in MIchigan restoration begins this week at the Manistee North Pierhead Lighthouse. Lakeshore Keepers, the organization now managing the lighthouse, is restoring the interior so that the lighthouse can be opened to the public next year.
  • July 9. In Shelburne, Nova Scotia, the Sandy Point Lighthouse friends group is seeking a contractor to repair problems with the base of the lighthouse.
  • July 9. A $1.5 million project is underway to restore the Duxbury Pier Lighthouse ("Bug Light" in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Goals are to stabilize the tower, repair the catwalk, and install a new vent ball.
  • July 8. In Australia a $124,000 state grant will launch the first phase of a major restoration project at the historic Cape Jaffa Lighthouse in Kingston, South Australia. .
  • July 8. Work is underway to repaint the 1832 Burnham-on-Sea High Lighthouse in Somerset, western England.
  • July 7. The Cape Canaveral Lighthouse in Florida will hold its third annual Christmas in July fundraiser Tuesday, July 15.
  • July 4. Happy Fourth of July! The Two Harbors Lighthouse in Minnesota will celebrate this evening by lighting their new LED lamp and Fresnel lens. The lens does not rotate, but the LED Lamp is designed to sweep the light around as if it were rotating.
  • July 3. The General Services Administration has scheduled a bidders tour for the Penfield Reef Lighthouse in Connecticut for next Thursday, July 10.
  • July 2. The Keweenaw Waterway Upper Entrance Lighthouse in Lake Superior, Upper Michigan, has been listed for transfer of ownership under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.
  • July 2. The 1905 Sheboygan Breakwater Lighthouse in Wisconsin has also been listed for transfer of ownership under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.
  • June 29. At a remote location in northern Iceland erosion has caused the Gjögurtá Lighthouse to lean ominously, and plans are being made to replace it.
  • June 29. Archaeologists at Split Rock Lighthouse in Minnesota have discovered remnants of a rail tramway that was used to transport building materials from barges on Lake Superior up the steep bluff during construction of the historic lighthouse more than a century ago.
  • June 27. The walkway to the Marshall Point Lighthouse in Maine, famous from the movie Forrest Gump, has reopened after extensive repairs needed following damage by winter storms in January 2024.
  • June 24. The new Fresnel lens of the Two Harbors Lighthouse in Minnesota will be lit for the first time on July 4, just in time for the town's Independence Day fireworks.
  • June 23. Volunteers rally to clean up vandalism damage at the Frankfort North Pier Lighthouse in Michigan. In addition, work begins soon on a restoration project to remove lead paint from the interior of the tower.
  • June 21. The very popular Big Sable Point Lighthouse in Michigan reopens Wednesday, June 25, following a closure since last fall due to construction in the surrounding state park. The lighthouse will open daily through early September and on weekends through late October.
  • June 21. As an 8-month restoration project nears completion the Gay Head Lighthouse on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, is back in service with a new LED beacon replacing the old DCB-224 lamp. The lighthouse will reopen to visitors soon.
  • June 21. In Connecticut the Arts Alliance of Stratford announces it is applying for ownership of the Stratford Point Lighthouse, which is now available for transfer to a new owner under NHLPA. The Alliance is competing against an application from the City of Stratford.


New London Harbor Light, New London, Connecticut, U.S.A., August 2023
Instagram photo by kristinalovephotography

About this site
Founded in 1999 (during the relocation of North Carolina's Cape Hatteras lighthouse), the Lighthouse Directory is a tool for research and study concerning lighthouses and efforts to preserve those lighthouses. The Directory provides a brief compilation of basic data for each lighthouse with links to other reliable information available on the Internet. Since the addition of the Hainan page in February 2009 listings cover the entire world. However, this doesn't mean the Directory is complete, because new information continues to come to light.

I'm glad to hear from site visitors, especially if you have lighthouse news or photos of rarely-visited lighthouses.

The Directory has over 30,000 links, and all of them were appropriate and legitimate when they were added. Occasionally, because a web site is hacked or a URL is captured, a link leads not to legitimate information but to an inappropriate site, such as a source of pornography or malicious software. Please let me know if this happens, and I will remove the offending link immediately.

This site is hosted by ibiblio.org, one of the largest free information databases online, maintained as a public service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.


Salinópolis Light, Salinopolis, Pará, Brazil, September 2022
Google Maps photo by Marcelo Cielo

Definitions: What is a lighthouse?
To begin with some basics, an aid to navigation or navaid is a structure placed on or near navigable water to provide visual guidance to mariners. A beacon is an aid to navigation that is fixed in place (that is, not floating). A lighted beacon or lightbeacon is a beacon displaying a light, while an unlit beacon is called a daybeacon. Often, a lighted beacon is simply called a light.

Everyone agrees that a lighthouse is a lightbeacon that is, in some sense, a substantial building. There is some diagreement among lighthouse fans as to whether there should be restrictions on the design of the building, but standard dictionaries in English all have some form of this simple definition: "A lighthouse is a tower carrying a light to guide mariners." Indeed, in many languages the word for a lighthouse translates literally as "light tower" or "fire tower." The Directory adopts this definition: a lighthouse is a tower, at least 4 m (13 ft) tall and more substantial in cross section than a post, mast, or pillar, carrying or designed originally to carry a light to guide mariners.

Many lighthouses are enclosed buildings with walls of stone, brick, wood, concrete, metal, or modern composite materials. Many others are open skeletal (framework) towers of cast iron, steel, or wood. The light at the top of some lighthouses is housed in an enclosed lantern, but many lighthouses have the light exposed with no lantern. Historically lighthouses were powered with a variety of fuels, but today nearly all are solar powered.

The Directory includes listings of certain lights and other sites of interest to lighthouse fans that aren't lighthouses by this definition. The titles of those listings are enclosed in square brackets [...]. In addition, lighthouses destroyed or demolished since 2000 continue to be listed; their names are preceded by the hashtag #.

A light station is a collection of buildings including a lighthouse, staff quarters, and supporting structures such as a fog signal building housing a foghorn or fogbell, a boathouse, an oil house to store fuel for the light, and so on. A century ago all lighthouses required lightkeepers to maintain and operate the light, fog signal, and other equipment. Today practically all aids to navigation operate automatically, but some light stations have resident caretakers, still called keepers, to maintain the property and guard against vandalism.


Slåtterøy Light, Bømlo, Vestland, Norway, January 2022
Google Maps photo by Charlotte

The lighthouse listings
Dates shown for lighthouses are the dates when the light was first displayed; this may be later than the construction date in some cases. A station establishment date, when listed, is the date when a light was first displayed at or near the same location. Data concerning the characteristics (colors and flash patterns) of lights comes mostly from the U.S. Coast Guard Light List for U.S. lighthouses and from the U.S. NGA List of Lights or available national light lists for lighthouses in other countries.

The focal plane height of a light is the height above the surface of the water at which the light is displayed. (The level of the water surface is usually "mean high water," the level at an average high tide.) In the listings, "focal plane" refers to the focal plane height. A lantern of a lighthouse is a room or structure that actually encloses the light.

The tower heights of the lighthouses themselves should be considered approximate. Different sources use different methods for measuring tower heights, and those heights may actually change due to changes in ground level at the base of the tower.

I have attempted to determine whether lighthouse sites and towers are open to the public. This information is inferred from whatever sources may be available; it is certainly not guaranteed. Please let me know if this information, or any information in the Directory, is incorrect.

Lighthouse listings are marked with ratings of zero to four stars based on the extent to which the light station is open to visitors. Check the ratings key to interpret these ratings.


Tsurushima Light, Matsuyama, Ehime, Japan, March 2023
Google Maps photo by Akihiko Fuji


Kara Ada Light, Bekdaş, Turkmenistan, September 2024
Google Maps photo by Сергей

Articles about lighthouses:

Online Light Lists

Online Navigation Charts

Special Resources


Mùlán Tóu Light, Wénchāng, Hǎinán, China, February 2015
Wikimedia Creative Commons photo by Anna Frodesiak


Gunung Belingkar Light, Kotabaru, South Kalimantan, Indonesia, January 2018
Google Maps photo by Yudha Fadilah Kurniawan


Butt of Lewis Light, Port of Ness, Western Isles, Scotland, U.K., March 2024
Instagram photo by andy_macp


 Old and new Kap Arkona Lights, Rügen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, April 2025
Instagram photo by J kaparkonadasoriginal

Regional, state, and local lighthouse preservation organizations are recognized on each U.S. state page. U.S. organizations interested in lighthouse preservation nationally are:

  • The American Lighthouse Foundation, based in Rockland, Maine. ALF encourages preservation efforts throughout the country and holds preservation leases on more than a dozen New England lighthouses.
  • The United States Lighthouse Society, formerly based in San Francisco, has moved to the Point No Point Lighthouse in Hansville, Washington. USLHS has chapters active in the Chesapeake area, Long Island, Oregon, and Washington, and has been active in supporting preservation in other areas as well. The Society also publishes a respected journal, The Keeper's Log, and has a large collection of historic light lists of U.S. lighthouses.

Lighthouses on the Internet: A Researcher's Guide has replaced the list of links formerly on this page.


Cherchell Light, Cherchell, Algeria, October 2020
Wikimedia Creative Commons photo by A. Nasser Hakem


Cap Formentor Light, Mallorca, Illes Baleares, Spain, May 2023
ex-Google Maps photo by Margarita Armenteras

Ko Taphao Noi Light, Phuket, Thailand, December 2023
Google Maps photo by Chadakorn Thapket


Sheffield Island Light, Sheffield, Connecticut, U.S.A., May 2024
Instagram photo by BestOfTheNutMegState


Belém (Mangal das Garças) Light, Belém, Pará, Brazil,October 2021
Google Maps photo by Bernardo Pastana


Long Point (Twillingate) Light, Twillingate, Newfoundland, Canada, February 2024
Instagram photo by adventurehattravels


Eilean Glas Light, Scalpay, Western Isles, Scotland, U.K., March 2022
Google Maps photo by Ron Smith

Lighthouses of the Americas

Northeastern United States

Southeastern United States and U.S. Caribbean

Midwestern United States

Western United States and U.S. Pacific Territories

Atlantic Canada and St. Pierre

Interior and Western Canada

Bermuda and the West Indies

Mexico

Central America

South America, Antarctica, South Atlantic Ocean

Lighthouses of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Australia, and Africa

New Zealand and Pacific Islands

Australia

Indian Ocean

Africa

Lighthouses of Europe

Britain and Ireland

France and Monaco

Spain and Portugal

Italy and Malta

Southeastern Europe

Southwestern Russia and Ukraine

Belgium and Netherlands

 

Germany

Inland Central Europe

Denmark, Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland

Norway (listed south to north)

Sweden (listed south to north)

Poland and the Baltic States

Finland

Northwestern Russia (listed southwest to northeast)

Lighthouses of Asia

Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and Caspian Sea

Arabia, Iran and Pakistan

India

Southeast Asia

Philippines

Indonesia

China and Taiwan

Korea (listed clockwise around the peninsula)

Japan (listed clockwise around the main islands)

Asiatic Russia


Porto Pí Light, Palma de Mallorca, Mallorca, Illes Baleares, Spain, February 2020
Google Maps street view by EuroWeb Media

Thanks to:

Hundreds of lighthouse fans around the world have enriched this site with their assistance, information, suggestions, and corrections. For a long time I tried to maintain a list of these many friends and contacts, but it has grown too long (and too out of date) to display here. However, I must recognize the late Michel Forand for his suggestions and corrections touching essentially every page of this work, and extend thanks to Jeremy D'Entremont, Ted Sarah, Klaus Huelse, and Andreas Köhler, who have followed the development of the Directory for years. More recently Jim Smith has read nearly every page carefully, correcting errors and suggesting useful additions. Each of them has contributed information and support in vital ways, and the Directory would be much less useful without their participation.

In addition to Michel Forand, I want to recognize the contributions of two other experts on lighthouse history who have passed in recent years: Terry Pepper, the Executive Director of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association (GLLKA), and Tim Harrison, the founding editor of Lighthouse Digest magazine. Both made useful and supportive comments on the Directory.

Formalities

Written by:

Russ Rowlett, Retired Adjunct Professor of Mathematics and Professor of Education
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

You are welcome to email the author (rowlett@email.unc.edu) with comments and suggestions.

All material in The Lighthouse Directory is copyright 2025 by Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Many images are presented by permission of their copyright holders, as noted under the image.

Permission is granted to copy portions of the Directory for personal use and study, but all other rights are reserved. You are welcome to make links to this page or to any page of the Directory, provided you credit the source and do not present the work as your own.

Please do not copy the contents of any page of the Directory to another site. This is an infringement of copyright, and it also deprives your users of the benefit of improvements and corrections made to the page. Everyone has permission to link to this page or to any page of the Directory.

The information contained in the directory is as accurate as I can make it; please notify me if you find any errors. Neither the author nor the University of North Carolina assumes any liability for uses made of the information presented by this web site.