| Long independent, Vietnam was colonized by France from the mid 1800s until 1941, when the country was invaded and conquered by Japan. After the end of World War II in 1945, French attempts to re-establish control triggered 30 years of warfare, leading to the reunification of the country in 1975. Fortunately, the lighthouses were not usually seen as targets during the Vietnam War, and most of them survived the fighting without major damage. A few of the historic French lighthouses have been replaced, but most remain in service and are regarded as historic monuments. In general, Vietnamese lighthouses have resident keepers. Vietnam is long and narrow, with a coastline measuring some 3000 km (1875 mi) in length. The northern third of the coast faces the Gulf of Tonkin, and the rest faces east and southeast on the open waters of the South China Sea. Aids to navigation are maintained by the two Maritime Safety Companies (MSC). Originally MSC I maintained lights in the northern half of the country and MSC II the lights of the southern half. Sometime in 2010-11, the two companies changed their names to Vietnam Northern Maritime Safety (VNMS) and Southern Vietnam Maritime Safety (SVMS). This page includes lighthouses of the MSC II region, which extends from Bình Định province to the Cambodian border. Note: Vietnam also operates a number of lighthouses in the Spratly Islands, and these lighthouses are also maintained by MSC II. The Vietnamese words for a lighthouse are Hải đăng or đèn biển. Dao or hòn is an island, mũi is a cape, cửa is a river. The Vietnamese language is written in Latin characters with various diacritical and tone markings; Unicode (UTF-8) encoding will be needed to display these markings correctly. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume F of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112. |
![]() Phú Quý Light, Bình Thuận Province Southern Vietnam Maritime Safety photo |
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![]() Hòn Nước Light Southern Vietnam Maritime Safety photo |
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![]() Cửa Tiểu Light Southern Vietnam Maritime Safety photo |
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![]() Hòn Khoai Light Southern Vietnam Maritime Safety photo |
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![]() Núi Nai (Hà Tiên) Light Southern Vietnam Maritime Safety photo |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Northern Vietnam | East: Spratly Islands | West: Cambodia
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Posted April 24, 2006. Checked and revised October 13, 2011. Lighthouses 43. Site copyright 2011 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.