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. Kōbe and Akashi are busy seaport cities on the southeastern coast of Hyōgo Prefecture. Southern Hyōgo faces south on the eastern end of the Seto Inland Sea (Seto Naikai), which separates the main islands of Honshū and Shikoku. It is a coast crowded with port facilities. These industrialized facilities continue westward through the city of Himeji, which is also in Hyōgo Prefecture. Since port areas are typically closed to casual visitors, information on the many harbor lights of the Hyōgo cities is rather scarce. Hyōgo also includes the large island of Awaji, which nearly spans the Seto Inland Sea and comes very close to connecting Honshū and Shikoku. Lighthouses of Awaji Shima and of the Himeji Area are on separate pages. In addition, Hyōgo Prefecture also has a northern coast facing the Sea of Japan in the region called Tajima. Lighthouses of that coast are described on the Tottori and Tajima 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. Almost always there is at least one Coast Guard Section Office in each prefecture, often two. The lighthouses of Kōbe and Akashi are maintained by the Kōbe office. 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. |
|
|
Kōbe City Lighthouses
|
|
![]() Nishinomiya Breakwater West End Light, Nishinomiya, Kōbe, January 2023; Google Maps photo by Kenichiro Asai |
|
|
|
|
Akashi City Lighthouses
|
|
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: East: Ōsaka | South: Awaji Shima | West: Himeji Area
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted December 22, 2006. Checked and revised February 10, 2025. Lighthouses: 32. Site copyright 2025 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.