The Ōsumi and Amami islands, together with neighboring groups of smaller islands, form the northern half of the Nansei (or Ryūkyū) Islands (Nansei-shotō or "southwest islands" in Japanese), an archipelago extending southwestward from Kyūshū towards Taiwan. Administratively, these islands are part of Kagoshima Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Kyūshū. Historically the Ryūkyū Islands were a more-or-less independent kingdom paying tribute as needed to either China or Japan or both. Japan annexed the islands in 1879 over Chinese protests; U.S. President Ulysses Grant, called in as arbitrator, ruled in favor of Japan. At the end of World War II in 1945, the Ryūkyū Islands from the Tokara group southward came under U.S. control. The U.S. returned the Tokaras to Japan in 1952 and the Amami Islands in 1953; Japan then attached these islands to Kagoshima Prefecture. Okinawa and the islands farther south remained under U.S. control as the Trust Territory of the Ryūkyū Islands. In 1972, the U.S. ceded sovereignty over all of the Ryūkyūs back to Japan, and the southern islands then became Okinawa Prefecture. In Japanese, the word for a lighthouse is tōdai or toudai (灯台). The words saki and misaki are for capes and headlands, shima (also spelled sima or jima) is an island, wan is a bay, and kō is a harbor. Lighthouses in Japan are operated and maintained by the Japanese Coast Guard's Maritime Safety Agency. Lighthouses in the Ōsumi islands are maintained by the Coast Guard office at Kagoshima City, Kyūshū. Those in the Amami islands are maintained by the office at Amami City. 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.
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Ōsumi Islands Lighthouses
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![]() Kusagaki Shima Light, Mishima Islands Japanese Coast Guard photo (no longer online) |
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![]() Nishinoomote Light, Nishinoomote, September 2006 Flickr Creative Commons photo by Dorothy (catandgirl) |
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![]() Otake Saki (Tanegashima) Light, Minamitane, February 2014 U.S. NASA public domain photo by Bill Ingalls |
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![]() Nagota Misaki (Yakushima) Light Japanese Coast Guard photo (no longer online) |
Tokara Islands Lighthouses
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Amami Islands Lighthouses
Note: The Amami Islands (Amami-shotō) lie due south of the Tokara Islands and northeast of Okinawa. Amami Ōshima, the largest island of the group and second largest of the Nansei Islands, is accessible by air, and the other inhabited islands can be reached by ferry from Amami Ōshima. The islands are organized as the Ōshima District of Kagoshima Prefecture, except that Amami City occupies portions of the northern half of Amami Ōshima.
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![]() Sotsukō Saki Light, Setouchi Japanese Coast Guard photo (no longer online) |
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Kagoshima | South: Okinawa Islands
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted August 27, 2007. Checked and revised March 21, 2013. Lighthouses: 62. Site copyright 2013 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.