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 Tōkyō Metropolis and Kanagawa Prefecture, including the capital city of Tōkyō, the great port of Yokohama, and the naval base of Yokosuka. This metropolitan area faces eastward on Tōkyō Bay. To the south, beyond the cape of Kannon Saki, the broader Sagami Bay links Tōkyō Bay to the Pacific Ocean. The total population of this highly urbanized region is about 23 million. Note: the Izu and Ogasawara Islands, stretching far into the Pacific south of Tōkyō, are attached administratively to Tōkyō Metropolis. Lighthouses of these islands are listed on a separate page. 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 Honshu there is usually one Coast Guard Section Office in each prefecture, sometimes two. In this region the Coast Guard has offices at Tōkyō for Tōkyō Metropolis and at Yokohama and Yokosuka for Kanegawa Prefecture. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. JP 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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Lighthouses of Tōkyō Metropolis
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![]() Tōkyō Gate East Breakwater Light (now lost), Tōkyō Harbor, July 2010 photo copyright souyas; permission requested |
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Lighthouses of Kanagawa Prefecture
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![]() Kannon Saki Light, Yokosuka, August 2024 Instagram photo by Quercus acuta |
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: East: Chiba | South: Eastern Shizuoka
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted September 25, 2006. Checked and revised November 25, 2024. Lighthouses: 51, lightships: 1. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.