The Most Beautiful Lighthouses in North America
6 places in 2 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful lighthouses in North America are Heceta Head Light (United States), Split Rock Lighthouse (United States) and Pemaquid Point Light (United States). The list covers 6 lighthouses in 2 countries. The United States has the most, with 5. Last updated 13 October 2026.
North America's lighthouses guard some of the most dangerous waters in the world: the rocky coasts of Maine and Nova Scotia, the shifting shoals off North Carolina known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, the storm-swept shores of the Great Lakes and the foggy headlands of the Pacific. Most of the great towers date from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when lighthouse building reached its peak, and many still hold their original glass lenses.
On the Atlantic, Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, first lit in 1791, is the oldest lighthouse in Maine, set on rocks above the surf. Pemaquid Point Light stands above bands of tilted rock that run down to the sea, and appears on Maine's state quarter. In Nova Scotia, Peggys Point Lighthouse rises from smooth granite at the fishing village of Peggys Cove. Further south, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, with its black-and-white spiral, is the tallest brick lighthouse in the United States.
Inland and in the west, the settings change. Split Rock Lighthouse in Minnesota stands on a sheer cliff above Lake Superior, built after a storm in 1905 wrecked ships along that shore. And Heceta Head Light on the Oregon coast sits on a headland high above the Pacific, its first-order Fresnel lens casting one of the strongest beams on that coast.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heceta Head Light | Lighthouse | United States | |
| 2 | Split Rock Lighthouse | Lighthouse | United States | |
| 3 | Pemaquid Point Light | Lighthouse | United States | |
| 4 | Peggys Point Lighthouse | Lighthouse | Canada | |
| 5 | Cape Hatteras Lighthouse | Lighthouse | United States | |
| 6 | Portland Head Light | Lighthouse | United States |
01 Heceta Head Light
United States44.137° N 124.128° W
Image by ArtTower from Pixabay The tower itself is modest, 56 feet high, but it carries a first-order Fresnel lens made by the English firm Chance Brothers, and its white flash every ten seconds reaches some 21 nautical miles out to sea, making it the strongest light on the Oregon coast. The light was automated in 1963 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. A careful restoration between 2011 and 2013 stripped away later stucco, repaired the metalwork and returned the tower to its 1894 appearance.
Did you know? According to legend, a friendly ghost called Rue haunts the keeper's house, sweeping up broken glass for residents.
02 Split Rock Lighthouse
United States47.200° N 91.368° W
Image by MikeGoad from Pixabay It exists because of a disaster. In November 1905 the Mataafa Storm swept Lake Superior and some 29 ships were lost or damaged. The lighthouse followed, completed in 1910 for about $75,000 including buildings and land, and first lit on 31 July that year. There was no road: every brick, beam and piece of equipment came by water and was hoisted up the cliff by crane. The station's third-order bivalve Fresnel lens, a clamshell of glass prisms, still sits in the lantern. Only in 1924 did a road reach the site — the forerunner of today's Highway 61 — and the lighthouse began drawing visitors as much as sailors.
Did you know? The lens is turned by clockwork driven by weights that descend through the centre of the tower, and the mechanism had to be wound by hand.
03 Pemaquid Point Light
United States43.837° N 69.506° W
Dennis G. Jarvis · CC BY-SA 2.0 The first tower here was built in 1827, but it was so badly made that it soon began to crumble: the builder had mixed the mortar with salt water. It was replaced in 1835 by the present conical stone tower, whose light stands 79 feet above the sea. In 1856 it received a fourth-order Fresnel lens, which is still in service, one of only a handful of such lenses still working in Maine. The station was automated in 1934. One of its keepers, Marcus A. Hanna, is the only person ever to have been awarded both the Medal of Honor, for his service in the Civil War, and the Gold Lifesaving Medal.
Did you know? After the first tower crumbled because salt water had been used in its mortar, the contract for its 1835 replacement specifically required fresh water only.
04 Peggys Point Lighthouse
Peggy's Point Lighthouse
Canada · 30.8 km from Halifax44.492° N 63.919° W
Image by lumix2004 from Pixabay A light has marked the eastern entrance to St. Margarets Bay since 1868, when the first, wooden lighthouse was built here. The present octagonal tower of reinforced concrete, about 15 metres tall, replaced it in the mid-1910s. It was automated in 1958 and is run by the Canadian Coast Guard; its light has changed colour over the decades, from white to green in the late 1970s and to red in 2007. For years the lighthouse also served as a small seasonal post office, whose letters left with a special lighthouse cancellation stamp, until it closed in 2009.
Did you know? The concrete tower deliberately keeps the eight-sided shape of the wooden light towers that came before it.
05 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
United States35.251° N 75.529° W
Image by 1778011 from Pixabay The light exists because of Diamond Shoals, shifting sandbars that reach far out from Cape Hatteras into the Atlantic. Here the warm Gulf Stream meets colder water from the north, storms build quickly, and so many ships were lost over the centuries that the waters became known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. The present tower was completed in 1870, designed by Dexter Stetson. The ocean, however, kept advancing on the island, and by the 1990s the surf was approaching the foot of the tower.
Did you know? In 1851 the naval officer David D. Porter called the old light the worst in the world, saying he had not seen it at all on his first nine passages.
06 Portland Head Light
United States43.623° N 70.208° W
Image by rhondaVL from Pixabay It is the oldest lighthouse in Maine and among the first completed by the young United States: work began in 1787, George Washington directed its completion with money appropriated by Congress, and the light was first lit on 10 January 1791. The tower has a long history of growing and shrinking: planned at 58 feet, raised by 20 feet while it was still being built, raised again during the Civil War, cut down by 20 feet in 1883, and restored to full height two years later. Today it stands about 80 feet above the ground, with its light 101 feet above the water and visible for some 24 nautical miles. The rocks have seen their share of drama: in 1886 the barque Annie C.
Did you know? On reaching the planned 58 feet, the masons climbed up and saw the light would be hidden by headlands to the south, so they added 20 feet.
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 North America?
- On our list, Heceta Head Light (United States) ranks first, followed by Split Rock Lighthouse (United States) and Pemaquid Point Light (United States).
- Which country has the most lighthouses in North America?
- In our collection, the most come from the United States (5) and Canada (1).
- Why was the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse moved?
- Coastal erosion brought the ocean dangerously close to the tower. In 1999 the entire lighthouse was lifted and moved about 2,900 feet inland, one of the largest structures ever relocated.
- What is a Fresnel lens?
- A Fresnel lens, invented by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel in the 1820s, uses rings of glass prisms to focus light into a powerful beam. First-order lenses are the largest, used on major coastal lighthouses.
- What is the oldest lighthouse in Maine?
- Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, first lit in 1791.
- How many lighthouses are on this list in North America?
- The list covers 6 lighthouses in 2 countries. The United States has the most, with 5.