Famous Lighthouses Around the World

A photo tour of lighthouses that travelers seek out and lighthouse lovers tick off: towers famous for their age, their engineering, their storms or simply the coastline they stand on. To earn a place, a lighthouse has to be a recognized landmark in its own right, still standing and still recognizable from the photo. Each caption names the place and the year the light first shone, or the year the present tower was lit where an older light came first. The tour runs roughly by region, from Europe's Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts through Africa and South America to North America and Australia. The Pharos of Alexandria, the most famous lighthouse of all, is missing only because nothing of it stands to photograph.