The Most Beautiful Lighthouses in France
5 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful lighthouses in France are Cordouan Lighthouse, Saint-Mathieu Lighthouse and Ploumanac'h Lighthouse. The list covers 5 lighthouses. Last updated 14 October 2026.
France's Atlantic coast is long, rocky and swept by some of the strongest tides in the world, and Brittany's reefs in particular wrecked ships for centuries. The answer was a chain of lighthouses, some on headlands, some built on bare rock in open sea, and France also produced the Fresnel lens, which transformed lighthouses everywhere.
The Cordouan Lighthouse in the Gironde estuary, begun in 1584, is a Renaissance monument with a royal apartment and a chapel inside its tower. The Saint-Mathieu Lighthouse in Finistère rises beside the ruins of a medieval abbey on the clifftop. The Ploumanac'h Lighthouse stands among the boulders of the Pink Granite Coast. La Jument, off the island of Ushant, became famous through a photograph of its keeper at the door as a giant wave broke around the tower.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cordouan Lighthouse | Lighthouse | ✓ |
| 2 | Saint-Mathieu Lighthouse | Lighthouse | |
| 3 | Ploumanac'h Lighthouse | Lighthouse | |
| 4 | Tour de la Lanterne | Lighthouse | |
| 5 | La Jument Lighthouse | Lighthouse |
01 Cordouan Lighthouse
France45.586° N 1.173° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Rémih · CC BY-SA 4.0 A visit is shaped entirely by the tide. Boats land visitors near the rock, and the monument opens only around low water, so crossings are timed to the tide and the stay on the rock is limited; the site advises sturdy footwear and clothing suited to the sea. Climbing through the royal apartment and chapel to the gallery, you move from Renaissance splendour to the plain engineering of the eighteenth century, with the estuary and open Atlantic spread out below.
Did you know? The work was completed in 1611 by his former site foreman, François Beuscher, after de Foix's son, also ruined, gave up the task.
02 Saint-Mathieu Lighthouse
Phare de Saint-Mathieu
France · 21.5 km from Brest48.330° N 4.771° W
JackyM59 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The tower is 37 metres high; a spiral staircase of 163 steps climbs the centre of the shaft, with eight rooms for stores and keepers arranged in a ring around it, to a light set about 55 metres above the sea. The optics went from rapeseed oil to petroleum and were electrified in 1932. The present paintwork, white with the name SAINT-MATHIEU in red and a red band at the top, dates from 1963; the light was automated in 1996. Together with Kermorvan it marks the line of the Chenal du Four, the channel ships take between the mainland and the islands.
Did you know? Around 1750 seabirds drawn to the light kept smashing into the panes, and the protective wire mesh fitted against them swallowed much of the beam.
03 Ploumanac'h Lighthouse
Phare de Ploumanac'h
France48.837° N 3.483° W
Image by ykaiavu from Pixabay The best way to see it is on foot along the sentier des douaniers, the old customs officers' path that forms part of the GR34 coastal trail around Brittany. The stretch from Trestraou beach in Perros-Guirec to the beach of Saint-Guirec at Ploumanac'h runs for a few kilometres past coves, heather and granite sculptures, with views to the islets offshore and to the Château de Costaérès on its island. At sunset, when the rocks glow from pink to deep orange, the lighthouse is the natural centre of the scene.
Did you know? The pink granite blocks came from the quarries of La Clarté in Perros-Guirec, the same stone that shapes the surrounding coast.
04 Tour de la Lanterne
France · 1.3 km from La Rochelle46.156° N 1.157° W
Pline · CC BY-SA 3.0 The tower's many names record a darker side. During the Wars of Religion, in 1568, Protestant La Rochelle locked up a group of Catholic priests inside it, and they were later killed, so it became the Priests' Tower; much later, in 1822, two of the Four Sergeants of La Rochelle, young soldiers condemned for a liberal plot, were held here before their execution in Paris. From the 17th to the 19th century it served as a jail for sailors and prisoners of war from England, Spain, the Netherlands and elsewhere, who left more than six hundred graffiti cut into its walls, among them finely detailed ships.
Did you know? Rabelais mentions the lantern of La Rochelle in the fifth book of his Pantagruel stories.
05 La Jument Lighthouse
Phare de la Jument
France48.422° N 5.134° W
Falken · CC BY-SA 3.0 The rock never quite accepted the tower. Storms cracked the lantern soon after it was lit, the foundations were strengthened after 1914, and in the 1930s engineers anchored the base with steel guy cables. Keepers lived inside through decades of winter seas until the light was automated in 1991. Two years earlier, on 21 December 1989, the photographer Jean Guichard, photographing the tower in a gale, caught keeper Théodore Malgorn at the door just as a huge wave broke over the tower; the image won a World Press Photo prize and has been reproduced on posters ever since. The lighthouse became a listed historic monument in 2017, and today it flashes red in groups of three.
Did you know? From December 1917 to November 1918 the light was switched off for fear of guiding German submarines.
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 lighthouses in France?
- On our list, Cordouan Lighthouse ranks first, followed by Saint-Mathieu Lighthouse and Ploumanac'h Lighthouse.
- Why is the Cordouan Lighthouse called the king of lighthouses?
- It was built as a royal showpiece, with sculpted decoration, a king's apartment and a chapel; in 2021 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
- Who invented the Fresnel lens?
- The French physicist Augustin Fresnel, in the 1820s. His lens of concentric glass rings focused a lamp's light into a powerful beam visible far out to sea, and it was first installed at Cordouan.
- How many lighthouses are on this list in France?
- The list covers 5 lighthouses.