| 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 Kanagawa Prefecture, including 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.
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.
- General Sources
- Lighthouse-Japan.com - Kanagawa
- A comprehensive site with photos and notes from visits to many lighthouses.
- Misty's Japanese Lighthouse Tour - Kanagawa
- Photos and a few notes in English for lighthouses in all parts of the country.
- Lighthouse Visits
- This site has photos for many lighthouses in this area.
- Online List of Lights - Japan - Honshu South Coast East Part
- Photos posted by Alexander Trabas.
- Lighthouses in Kanagawa Prefecture
- Photos by various photographers available from Wikimedia.
- Kawasaki Marine Safety Station - Photos
- Photos posted by the Kawasaki harbor branch of the Yokohama Coast Guard Office.
- Japan: Modern Lighthouses
- Historic postcard images posted by Michel Forand.
- Leuchttürme Japans und Koreas auf historischen Postkarten
- Historic postcard images posted by Klaus Huelse.
- Google Maps
- Satellite view of Kanagawa.
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North Inner Breakwater Light, Yokohama, March 2021
Instagram photo by AladdinCreation
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