Taiwan is a large island, nearly 400 km (250 mi) long, lying about 180 km (110 mi) off the coast of China. The island was claimed by the Chinese Empire in 1683 and some of its coastal regions at least were governed by China for more than 200 years. In 1895, following the first Sino-Japanese War, China ceded control of Taiwan to Japan. Japan governed the island until the end of the Second World War in 1945. While in power the Japanese constructed several lighthouses in Taiwan that remain active today. In 1949 the collapse of Nationalist forces in mainland China led to a new governmental separation between Taiwan and the mainland, with the Nationalist government, the Republic of China (Zhōnghuá Mínguó, 中華民國), on Taiwan and the Communist government, the People's Republic of China, on the mainland. This separation continues to the present day. This page describes lighthouses of the Penghu (Pescadores) Islands, an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait about 50 km (30 mi) west of Taiwan's southwest coast. The principal town, Magong, is accessible by air from Kaohsiung and by fast ferry from Budai. The islands are a resort area for Taiwanese but are seldom visited by Westerners. They are accessible by air or by ferry from Kaohsiung, Tainan, or Chiayi. The islands are administered as Penghu County, one of the 22 local government districts of Taiwan. Lighthouses in Taiwan are operated by the Maritime and Port Bureau. The Bureau has adopted a program to restore and develop the light stations as tourist attractions. There are many languages and dialects spoken in China, but Standard Chinese, often called Mandarin, is the primary language in Taiwan as it is on the mainland. The Chinese word for a lighthouse is dēngtǎ (灯塔). Jiao or chiao is a cape, dao, tao, yu, or hsu is an island, wan is a bay, and kang or gang is a harbor. Due to competing systems for transliterating Chinese into Latin characters there are always several possible spellings for the names of places in China. The Wade-Giles system was in use in Taiwan for many years, but at the beginning of 2009 the Pinyin system used on the mainland became the standard in Taiwan as well. At the present time most place names in Taiwan are still known under their Wade-Giles spellings: Keelung rather than Jilong, for example, and Kaohsiung rather that Gaoxiong. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume P of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
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![]() Mudouyu Light, Baisha, May 2021 Google Maps photo by Lin Youlong |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: East: Western Taiwan | Southeast: Southern Taiwan | West: Matsu and Kinmen
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Posted September 11, 2007. Checked and revised March 20, 2025. Lighthouses: 10. Site copyright 2025 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.