Chania Lighthouse — lighthouse
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Chania Lighthouse

Φάρος Χανίων

  • 1 min read
  • 35.519° N 24.017° E

Interesting facts

  • 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.
  • Because it stood inside a busy town, the lighthouse was built without any living quarters for a keeper.
  • The tower itself is about 21 metres tall, but standing on the end of the harbour mole its light shines some 26 metres above the sea.
  • Its red flashing light can be seen roughly seven nautical miles out to sea.
  • Under Ottoman rule the old port and its light were neglected because the new rulers preferred the deep natural anchorage of Souda Bay nearby.
  • The Venetians carried out their great harbour works at Chania in the late 16th century, building the first tower together with the Firkas and St Nicholas defences.
  • Restorers found that the upper tower is joined to its old Venetian base through a hidden wooden grillage foundation.
  • Wartime bombing and earthquakes left the tower visibly leaning before its restoration in the mid-2000s.

Why it is worth it

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.

The site has been guarded for centuries. The Venetians, who ruled Crete from the thirteenth century until 1669, built the harbour defences and a first lighthouse here to protect the port against pirates and the Ottomans. After the Ottoman conquest of Chania in 1645 the light fell into ruin. Its present form dates from 1864, when it was rebuilt on the Venetian foundations during the period when Egyptian forces held Crete for the Ottoman Empire; only the base of the earlier tower remains. In 1915 a fixed light was installed and it joined the official Greek lighthouse network.

The tower was damaged in the Second World War and restored in 2006. It has been protected as an archaeological monument since 1962. Its light flashes red every 2.5 seconds. Seen from the waterfront, especially at dusk when the quays light up, the stone tower at the harbour mouth is the focal point of the old port, framing the sea beyond the Venetian basin.

Getting there

The lighthouse is at the mouth of the old harbour in Chania, about 1.5 km from the town centre. Chania International Airport (CHQ) is about 12 km away.

Plan your visit

We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.

Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Crete 7The Most Beautiful Places in Greece 58The Greatest Engineering Wonders in Greece 5The Most Beautiful 19th-Century Lighthouses 5The Greatest 19th-Century Engineering Wonders 22The Most Beautiful Lighthouses 26The Greatest Engineering Wonders 271

From the encyclopaedia

Chania Lighthouse, is a lighthouse located at the entrance of the port of Chania, on the island of Crete, Greece. It was built in 1864 on the site of the original lighthouse by the Venetians. It has been a listed archeological site in Greece since 1962.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

35.51949, 24.01672per Wikidata