is a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

located on the island of

Sugashima is an inhabited island located in Ise Bay off the east coast of central Honshu, Japan. It is administered as part of the city of Toba in Mie Prefecture. It is the second largest of the outlying islands of Toba. Historically, it was noted for its ...

, in

Ise Bay is a bay located at the mouth of the Kiso Three Rivers between Mie and Aichi Prefectures in Japan. Ise Bay has an average depth of and a maximum depth of . The mouth of the bay is and is connected to the smaller Mikawa Bay by two channels: th ...

off the shores of the city of

Toba Toba may refer to: Languages * Toba Sur language, spoken in South America * Batak Toba, spoken in Indonesia People * Toba people, indigenous peoples of the Gran Chaco in South America * Toba Batak people, a sub-ethnic group of Batak people from ...

Mie Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic area of . Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture to ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It is located within the borders of the Ise-Shima National Park.

History

The Sugashima Lighthouse was designed and constructed by British engineer

Richard Henry Brunton Richard Henry Brunton FRGS MICE (26 December 1841 – 24 April 1901) was the so-called " Father of Japanese lighthouses". Brunton was born in Muchalls, Kincardineshire, Scotland. He was employed by the government of Meiji period Japan as a f ...

, and was first lit on July 1, 1873, in a ceremony attended by

Saigō Takamori was a Japanese samurai and nobleman. He was one of the most influential samurai in Japanese history and one of the three great nobles who led the Meiji Restoration. Living during the late Edo and early Meiji periods, he later led the Satsum ...

and other dignitaries of the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...

. Brunton constructed a total of 25 lighthouses in Japan from far northern

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

to southern

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surround ...

during his career in Japan, each with a different design. Built of domestically produced white bricks, the Sugashima Lighthouse is styled in the manner of a European castle round tower, complete with crenellations. It replaced a more primitive light established by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

on the island in 1673 in response to numerous shipwrecks in the area. The lighthouse was fully automated and has been unattended since July 1959. The 9.7 meter tall tower contains a fourth order Fresnel lens, and has a range of 27 kilometers. The Sugashima Lighthouse is listed as one of the “50 Lighthouses of Japan” by the Japan Lighthouse Association. It is operated by the Japan Coast Guard.

Protected status

In 1964, the former official abode of the lighthouse keeper was relocated to serve as an exhibit at Meiji Mura, a historical museum in

Inuyama, Aichi is a city in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 73,420 in 31,276 households, and a population density of 980 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . The name of the city literally transliterates to "Dog ...

and was registered as an

Important Cultural Property of Japan An The term is often shortened into just is an item officially classified as Tangible Cultural Property by the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) and judged to be o ...

in 1968. The lighthouse itself became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2010.

Notes

References

*Brunton, Richard. ''Building Japan, 1868–1879''. Japan Library, 1991. *Pedlar, Neil. ''The Imported Pioneers: Westerners who Helped Build Modern Japan''. Routledge, 1990.

External links

Lighthouses in Japan

Museum Meiji Mura

Lighthouses completed in 1873 Buildings and structures in Mie Prefecture Lighthouses in Japan Tourist attractions in Mie Prefecture {{lighthouse-stub

History

Protected status

See also

Notes

References

External links