The Most Beautiful 19th-Century Lighthouses in the World
5 places in 5 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful 19th-century lighthouses in the world are Chania Lighthouse (Greece), Heceta Head Light (United States) and Lindau Lighthouse (Germany). The list covers 5 19th-century lighthouses in 5 countries. France has the most, with 1. Last updated 13 October 2026.
The nineteenth century was the great age of lighthouse building. Growing steam and sail traffic, new national lighthouse authorities and the Fresnel lens, invented in the 1820s, made it possible to light dangerous coasts systematically. Towers were built of granite, brick, cast iron and, by the end of the century, concrete, and many were designed with a care for proportion that makes them landmarks in their own right.
The lighthouse at Chania on Crete guards the Venetian harbour; its present stone tower, with a base that recalls a minaret, dates from the Egyptian period on the island in the nineteenth century. Heceta Head Light stands on a headland above the Pacific on the Oregon coast and has shone since 1894. Lindau Lighthouse, at the harbour entrance on Lake Constance, faces a stone Bavarian lion across the water and is the southernmost lighthouse in Germany.
On the Atlantic side of Europe, the Saint-Mathieu lighthouse in Brittany rises beside the ruins of a medieval abbey at the western edge of France. La Corbière in Jersey, built in 1874, stands on a tidal rock reached by a causeway at low water and was the first lighthouse in the British Isles built of concrete.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chania Lighthouse | Lighthouse | Greece | |
| 2 | Heceta Head Light | Lighthouse | United States | |
| 3 | Lindau Lighthouse | Lighthouse | Germany | |
| 4 | Saint-Mathieu Lighthouse | Lighthouse | France | |
| 5 | La Corbière lighthouse | Lighthouse | Jersey |
01 Chania Lighthouse
Φάρος Χανίων
Greece · 0.8 km from Chania35.519° N 24.017° E
Image by cray666 from Pixabay The lighthouse of Chania stands at the entrance to the old Venetian harbour, a stone masonry tower that closes the view along the waterfront of this Cretan port. It rises about 26 m above the bay, with a gallery and lantern at the top.
Did you know? The tower rises in three stages, an octagonal base, a sixteen-sided middle and a round top, which gives it the look of a slender minaret.
02 Heceta Head Light
United States44.137° N 124.128° W
Image by ArtTower from Pixabay Heceta Head Light stands on a forested headland above the Pacific on the central Oregon coast, its white tower set on a ledge some 205 feet above the surf. The headland is named after Bruno de Heceta, the Spanish navigator who explored this coast in the late eighteenth century. Construction began in 1892 with a crew of 56, and the light was first lit in 1894.
Did you know? Its Fresnel lens contains 640 two-inch-thick prisms arranged in eight bull's-eye panels, made in Birmingham, England.
03 Lindau Lighthouse
Leuchtturm Lindau
Germany · 6.9 km from Bregenz47.543° N 9.684° E
Image by maxmann from Pixabay Lindau's lighthouse stands at the end of the western breakwater of the harbour of Lindau island, facing the Bavarian Lion on the opposite mole, and the two together form one of the most photographed harbour entrances on Lake Constance. It is the only lighthouse in Bavaria and the southernmost in Germany. Because the lake itself lies high, its light also burns at the greatest altitude of any in the country, some 428 metres above sea level.
Did you know? The white flash is switched on by radio signals sent from ships approaching the harbour, rather than shining unattended all night.
04 Saint-Mathieu Lighthouse
Phare de Saint-Mathieu
France · 21.5 km from Brest48.330° N 4.771° W
JackyM59 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Few lighthouses stand in company as strange as Saint-Mathieu's. The white tower with its red crown rises straight out of the ruined nave of a Benedictine abbey on the Pointe Saint-Mathieu, the cliff-edged headland at the western tip of Brittany where the Iroise sea meets the approaches to Brest. Beside it are a naval signal station and a memorial to French sailors lost at sea, so that one short walk takes in eight centuries of the coast's relationship with the sea.
Did you know? The light has a range of about 29 nautical miles, roughly 55 km, and flashes white once every 15 seconds.
05 La Corbière lighthouse
Jersey49.180° N 2.250° W
Image by falco from Pixabay At the southwestern tip of Jersey, where the island ends in a jumble of granite reefs, a white tower stands on a rock that is an island twice a day. La Corbière lighthouse was completed in 1874 to the designs of the engineer Sir John Coode, and it holds a quiet place in engineering history as the first lighthouse in the British Isles to be built of concrete. The tower itself is only about 19 metres tall, but set on its rock the lantern sits some 36 metres above high spring tides, throwing a white light up to 18 nautical miles and a red light up to 16.
Did you know? The name La Corbière means 'the place where crows gather', from the local word for crow, although gulls have long since taken over the rocks.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful 19th-century lighthouses in the world?
- On our list, Chania Lighthouse (Greece) ranks first, followed by Heceta Head Light (United States) and Lindau Lighthouse (Germany).
- Which country has the most 19th-century lighthouses in the world?
- In our collection, the most come from France (1), Germany (1) and Greece (1).
- What is a Fresnel lens?
- The Fresnel lens, developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel in the 1820s, uses concentric rings of glass prisms to focus light into a strong beam. It allowed lighthouses to be seen from much further away and spread rapidly through the 19th century.
- Which was the first concrete lighthouse in the British Isles?
- La Corbière lighthouse in Jersey, completed in 1874, was the first lighthouse in the British Isles built of concrete.
- Why is there a lighthouse on Lake Constance?
- Lake Constance is large enough for regular passenger and cargo shipping, and Lindau's harbour needed a light. The lighthouse was completed in 1856 at the harbour entrance.
- How many 19th-century lighthouses are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 5 19th-century lighthouses in 5 countries. France has the most, with 1.