A Month of Lighthouse News:.
- October 16. The Hartford Current has details of the management plan for the Lynde Point Lighthouse in Connecticut, assuming it is transferred, as recommended by the National Park Service, to the Borough of Fenwick.
- October 14. In New Jersey Cumberland County now controls the East Point Lighthouse and plans to reopen it, but the Maurice River Historical Society, which saved and restored the lighthouse and has 27 years experience managing it, has not been asked to help. This makes no sense.
- October 10. Donated scaffolding is being installed at the 1858 Cape Romain Lighthouse in South Carolina as the first step in volunteer-led efforts to save the endangered and long-abandoned lighthouse.
- October 9. In Michigan the Hiawatha National Forest has agreed to partner with the Round Island Lighthouse Preservation Society on critical restoration needs at the 1896 Round Island Lighthouse in the Straits of Mackinac, including roofing, masonry work, and exterior painting.
- October 9. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has leased the 1849 East Point Lighthouse on Delaware Bay to Cumberland County. The county will manage the lighthouse and is working on a plan to reopen it. It has been closed to the public since 2024. https://dep.nj.gov/newsrel/26_0046/
- October 8. The Michigan Historic Preservation Office has awarded a $100,000 grant to the Keweenaw County Historical Society to fund the structural rehabilitation of the historic fog signal building of the 1895 Eagle Harbor Lighthouse.
- October 7. At the Big Sable Point Lighthouse in Michigan repairs this month to the chimney and porch foundation of the keeper's house are a prelude to a $450,000 restoration of the house planned for next summer.
- October 6. The 1850 Sankaty Head Lighthouse on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, is getting a partial restoration. Work includes resealing the lantern room glass, masonry repairs, metalwork, and repainting the exterior.
- October 4. In Belize the century-old Baron Bliss Memorial Lighthouse, threatened by a compromised foundation, will be removed and replaced by a new but identical lighthouse.
- October 2. It's getting spooky in Upper Michigan: the Marquette Maritime Museum will host its annual Halloween-themed fundraiser for the 1866 Marquette Harbor Lighthouse in the evenings Oct. 8 through Oct. 10, following the museum's seasonal closure on Wednesday, Oct. 7.
- October 1. The Historic House Trust of New York City has hired preservation architects to plan and manage a complete restoration of the 1880 Jeffrey's Hook Lighthouse, better known as the Little Red Lighthouse. Since 1921 it has stood under the George Washington Bridge.
- September 29. Events during October will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the 1826 Berwick Lighthouse, on the North Sea in the northernmost town of England.
- September 20. Authorities in Bermuda say that as communications gear mounted on the 1879 St. Davids Lighthouse is moved to a new communications tower restoration work on the lighthouse will begin early in 2027.
- September 18. The Algoma Pierhead Lighthouse in Wisconsin is being repainted bright red after some minor repairs at a salvage company in Sturgeon Bay. The lighthouse was removed from its breakwater home for reconstruction of the pier, but it is expected to return next month.
Pulau Pelapas Light, Central Bangka, Bangka Belitung, Indonesia, December 2019
Google Maps photo by Radi El Guitarista
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.
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.
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.
Punta Cumplida Light, Isla de la Palma, Western Canary Islands, Spain, April 2023
Instagram photo by Marcos Antonio Sabina Miñón
Old nad new Kap Arkona Lights, Rügen, Vorpommern-Rügen, Germany, April 2025
Instagram photo by J kaparkonadasoriginal
Articles about lighthouses:
- The Oldest U.S. Towers, 1764-1791
- Early Federal Octagonals, 1792-1817O
- Old Style Brick Lighthouses, 1820-1849
- Oldest Integral Lighthouses, 1830-1853
- Tall Towers of Iron, 1846-1881
- Early Classic Brick Towers, 1850-1869
- Onshore Skeletal Lighthouses, 1861-1910
- Sparkplug Lighthouses, 1871-1926
- Canada's Flying-Buttress Lighthouses, 1908-1910
- Unstaffed Offshore Lights of the Florida Keys, 1921-1935
- Storm Warning Towers
Online Light Lists
Online Navigation Charts
Special Resources
- Checklist of Lightships of the World
- National Light Lists
- Bolivian Light List 2010
- Lighthouse Development in Mozambique, 1908-1931
- Lighthouses of the Khasan District, Russian Far East
- Malaysia List of Lights 2020
- Montenegro Light List 2013
- Northern Cyprus Light List
- Panama Canal Range Lights (pdf document, 652 kB)
- Papua New Guinea Light List
- The Tallest Lighthouses
- USGSA - Lighthouse Disposal List 2023
Cap Bon Light, Haouaria, Nabeul, Tunisia, March 2019
Google Maps drone view by Jihed Hameda
East Island Light, North Andaman, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, August 2017
ex-Google Plus photo by Soma Shekar
Île Parisienne Light, Lake Superior, Algoma District, Ontario, Canada, August 2024
Google Maps photo by
Kelley Neal
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.
Mounu Reef Northeast Light, Tongatapu, Tonga, December 2022
photo copyright Jim Smith; used by permission
Kråkenes Light, Vågsøy, Vestland, Norway, June 2021
Instagram photo by Stian Vestnes
West Breakwater Light, Hiroshima, Japan, October 2019
photo copyright Michael Boucher; used by permission
Meganom Light, Sudak, Crimea, Occupied Ukraine, April 2021
Google Maps photo by Pavel Zubko
Apia Range Front Light, 'Upolu, Samoa, November 2023
Google Maps street view by topVIEW Photography
1818 Howth Harbour Light, Dublin, Ireland, December 2022
Instagram photo by amazingshots_lighthouse
Île Nukuatea Range Rear Light, Île Wallis, Wallis and Futuna, May 2007
ex-Panoramio photo copyright Anna Strumillo; used by permission
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, Arctic, and Western Canada
Bermuda and the West Indies
Mexico
Central America
South America
South Atlantic Ocean and Antarctica
Lighthouses
of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Australia, and Africa |
Pacific Islands
New Zealand
Australia
Indian Ocean
Africa
Lighthouses
of Europe |
Britain and Ireland
France and Monaco
Portugal
Spain and Gibraltar
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
South and Southeast Asia
Philippines
Indonesia
China and Taiwan
Korea (listed clockwise around the peninsula)
Japan (listed clockwise around the main islands)
Asiatic Russia