The Lighthouse Directory

Welcome to the Lighthouse Directory, which provides information and links for more than 11,100 of the world's lighthouses. Latest update June 29, 2009. This week we have greatly expanded listings for the Arkhangelsk Region of Russia and the U.S. state of Texas. There are many new photos on the pages for Southern Fujian in China and the Ålesund Area of Norway. The pages for Northwestern Turkey and Mexico's West Coast have also been expanded and revised, with several new photos.

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Houyu (Monkey Island) Light, Xiamen, Southern Fujian, China
PRC Maritime Safety Administration Xiamen Office photo

A Month of Lighthouse News:

  • July 1. At the Biloxi lighthouse in Mississippi, work has begun on a $400,000 project to repair Hurricane Katrina-related damage.
  • July 1. In Maine, the U.S. Coast Guarda and the American Lighthouse Foundation have announced that 52 lighthouses will be open for tours on September 12.
  • June 28. The Tower of Hercules lighthouse at La Coruña, Spain, has been named a UNESCO World Heritage site.
  • June 24. South Australia's Point Lowly lighthouse has been ordered deactivated because its light was confusing boaters.
  • June 24. In Kingston, New York, bids have been asked for $220,000 in repairs to the historic Rondout Lighthouse.
  • June 18. In Virginia, Matthews County is planning a $700,000 seawall to protect the endangered New Point Comfort lighthouse.
  • June 18. The restored 4th order lens of the Angel's Gate lighthouse has gone on display at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum.
  • June 13. Scrambling to meet criticism, Canadian officials say they will find the funds to repair and paint the Peggy's Cove Lighthouse in Nova Scotia.
  • June 12. In Mississauga, Ontario, the Port Credit Lighthouse is getting a facelift this summer.
  • June 7. The Canadian government has granted $1.56 million to restore the historic Fisgard Lighthouse on Vancouver Island, B.C.
  • June 5. Michigan's McGulpin Point Light is back in operation after dedication ceremonies on May 30.
  • June 4 . Reconstruction of the hurricane-shattered New Canal Light in New Orleans, Louisiana, is scheduled to begin this fall.
  • June 3. Rapid beach erosion endangers the historic Kutubdia Lighthouse in Bangladesh.

Bolivar Point Light
Bolivar Point Light, Port Bolivar, Texas, U.S.A., January 2009
Creative Commons photo by Joe Nevill

About this site
Founded in 1999 (during the relocation of North Carolina's Cape Hatteras lighthouse), the Lighthouse Directory is a tool for research and study concerning lighthouses and efforts to preserve those lighthouses. The Directory provides a brief compilation of basic data for each lighthouse with links to other reliable information available on the Internet. With the addition of the Hainan page in February 2009, listings now cover the entire world. However, this doesn't mean the Directory is complete, because new information continues to come to light.

I'm glad to hear from site visitors, especially if you have lighthouse news or photos of rarely-visited lighthouses.

This site is hosted by my employer, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Hoskoy Feneri
Hosköy Feneri, Sea of Marmara, Northwestern Turkey
Turkish Coastal Safety Directorate photo

What is a lighthouse?
It is not so easy to define exactly what we mean by a lighthouse, and various organizations and individuals have used very different definitions when describing or classifying lighthouses. Clearly, all lighthouses are lighted aids to navigation, but not all lighted aids are considered to be lighthouses.

Some definitions are not controversial. An aid to navigation is a structure placed on or near navigable water to provide visual guidance to mariners. A beacon is an aid to navigation that is fixed in place (that is, not floating). A lighted beacon or lightbeacon is a beacon displaying a light, while an unlit beacon is called a daybeacon. Often, a lighted beacon is simply called a light.

In this Directory, a lighthouse is a lightbeacon having a height of at least 4 meters (13 ft) and a cross-section, at the base, of at least 4 square meters (43 sq ft). This simple definition does not require that a lighthouse have any particular form or appearance. The structure of a lighthouse may be enclosed, partially enclosed, or completely open.

The Directory includes listings of certain lights and other sites of interest to lighthouse fans that aren't lighthouses by this definition. The titles of those listings are enclosed in square brackets [...]. In addition, lighthouses destroyed or demolished since 2000 continue to be listed; their names are preceded by a pound sign #.


Faro de Cabo Corrientes, Jalisco, Mexico's West Coast, November 2005
anonymous Wikipedia Creative Commons photo

The lighthouse listings
Dates shown for lighthouses are the dates when the light was first displayed; this may be later than the construction date in some cases. A station establishment date, when listed, is the date when a light was first displayed at or near the same location. Data concerning the characteristics of lights comes mostly from the U.S. Coast Guard Light List for U.S. lighthouses and from the NGA List of Lights for lighthouses in other countries.

The focal plane of a light is the height above the surface of the water at which the light is displayed. A lantern of a lighthouse is a room or structure that actually encloses the light.

The heights of the lighthouse towers themselves should be considered approximate. Different sources use different methods for measuring tower heights, and those heights may actually change due to changes in ground level at the base of the tower.

I have attempted to determine whether lighthouse sites and towers are open to the public. This information is inferred from whatever sources may be available; it is certainly not guaranteed. Please let me know if this information, or any information in the Directory, is incorrect.

Lighthouse listings are marked with ratings of zero to four stars based on the extent to which the light station is open to visitors. Check the ratings key to interpret these ratings.


Alnes Fyr, Ålesund Area, Norway, June 2007
anonymous Wikipedia Creative Commons photo

Articles about lighthouses:


South Point Light, Barbados, October 2005
Creative Commons photo by Wayne Jackson

Special Resources

Svyatoy Nos Light
Svyatoy Nos Light, Kola Peninsula, Murmansk Region, Russia, March 2007
anonymous Creative Commons photo


Five Mile Point (New Haven) Light, Connecticut, U.S.A., July 2008
anonymous Creative Commons photo

Faro de Punta Nariga
Faro de Punta Nariga, Galicia, Spain, October 2008
anonymous Creative Commons photo


Hoburg Fyr, Gotland, Sweden, April 2007
photo copyright Rainer Heinrichs; used by permission
Lighthouses of the Americas

Northeastern United States

Southeastern United States

Midwestern United States

Western United States and U.S. Pacific Territories

U.S. Caribbean

Canada and Greenland

Bermuda and the West Indies

Mexico and Central America

South America and Antarctica

Lighthouses of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Australia, and Africa

Pacific Ocean

Australia

South Indian Ocean

Africa

Lighthouses of Europe

Britain and Ireland

France, Monaco and Switzerland

Spain and Portugal

Italy and Malta

Southeastern Europe

Northern Europe

Denmark, Faroes, and Iceland

Norway

Sweden

Lighthouses of Asia

Western and Central Asia

South and Southwest Asia

Southeast Asia

China and Taiwan

Korea and Russian Far East

Japan


Cape Recife Light, Port Elizabeth, Eastern South Africa, January 2005
Creative Commons photo by Raz Barnea

Regional, state, and local lighthouse preservation organizations are recognized on each state page. U.S. organizations interested in lighthouse preservation nationally are:

  • The American Lighthouse Foundation, based in Wells, Maine. ALF encourages preservation efforts throughout the country and holds preservation leases on more than a dozen New England lighthouses.
  • The United States Lighthouse Society, formerly based in San Francisco, has moved to the Point No Point Lighthouse in Hansville, Washington. USLHS has chapters active in the Chesapeake area, Long Island, Oregon, and Washington, and has been active in supporting preservation in other areas as well. The Society also publishes a respected journal, The Keeper's Log.

Lighthouses on the Internet: A Researcher's Guide has replaced the list of links formerly on this page.

Thanks to:

Hundreds of lighthouse fans around the world have enriched this site with their assistance, information, suggestions, and corrections. For a long time I tried to maintain a list of these many friends and contacts, but it has grown too long (and too out of date) to display here. However, I must extend special thanks to Jeremy D'Entremont, Michel Forand, Ted Sarah, and Klaus Huelse, who have followed the development of the Directory for years. Each of them has contributed information and support in vital ways, and the Directory would be much less useful without their participation.

Formalities

Written by:

Russ Rowlett, Director,
Center for Mathematics and Science Education
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

You are welcome to email the author (rowlett@email.unc.edu) with comments and suggestions.

All material in The Lighthouse Directory is copyright 2009 by Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Some images are presented by permission of their copyright holders, as noted under the image.

Permission is granted to copy portions of the Directory for personal use and study, but all other rights are reserved. You are welcome to make links to this page or to any page of the Directory, provided you credit the source and do not present the work as your own.

Please do not copy the contents of any page of the Directory to another site. This is an infringement of copyright, and it also deprives your users of the benefit of improvements and corrections made to the page.

The information contained in the directory is as accurate as I can make it; please notify me if you find any errors. Neither the author nor the University of North Carolina assumes any liability for uses made of the information presented by this web site.