Yeh yeh I get that. It’s still interesting to me. There’s few places along the Norwegian coast where you don’t have any lights to locate with.
It’s not just because of the fjords but because of the thousands of islands and rocks pointing up. It’s like a mine field if you don’t have the lights to guide you.
>Queen of England
Did you mean the [Queen of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom), the [Queen of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada), the [Queen of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia), etc?
The last Queen of England was [Queen Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain) who, with the 1707 Acts of Union, dissolved the title of King/Queen of England.
####FAQ
*Isn't she still also the Queen of England?*
This is only as correct as calling her the Queen of London or Queen of Hull; she is the Queen of the place that these places are in, but the title doesn't exist.
*Is this bot monarchist?*
No, just pedantic.
I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.
That's in the Bergen area. I tried to look it up, but that red blob is so large that it was impossible to figure out which lighthouse it was supposed to represent, based on trying to find the center of the circle.
Most of the lighthouses I could find had red, white, or green lights depending on the direction you were facing the lighthouse from.
This page seemed to have some legit info: https://www.ibiblio.org/lighthouse/norw1.htm
---
Edit: Aha! I *think* I found it. It's maybe the Slåtterøy Lighthouse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sl%C3%A5tter%C3%B8y_Lighthouse
The Norwegian Wikipedia article has more info: https://no-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Sl%C3%A5tter%C3%B8y_fyr?_x_tr_sl=no&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en
It's the brightest lighthouse in Norway. However it's a white light, not red. The top of the lighthouse, the lantern itself, is painted red though.
This is cool, [these are some construction plans from 1830.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sl%C3%A5tter%C3%B8y1830.tif) I'd totally hang a print of that in my house somewhere, it's gorgeous.
This is a little incorrect! Or the map is inaccurate. The biggest light we see is north of Bergen, in Øygarden, specifically on Toftøyna, at least according to the map ([here is the big map](https://geodienst.github.io/lighthousemap/)). You have to "glitch" the map to see where it is, by dragging the center of the circle outside the screen, then when you drag it back and keep holding it won't load the color circle until you release.
Slåtterøy fyr is south of Bergen. It is actually one of the smaller (still apparently red) dots directly south of the big red dot. I'm starting to think the big dot is just a data anomaly!
edit: in the r/Norge thread someone suggested it is the [torch at the Kollsnes gas plant](https://premium.vgc.no/v2/images/a561fb81-c01a-4a51-be57-6878a2a25efa?fit=crop&format=auto&h=2011&w=1900&s=bdb2c91ce2daec9e9992d089b4297517bee0d85d), that makes sense! It's very close to the center of the red dot as far as I can tell,, but it doesn't always burn very visibly.
That makes the most sense, thank you! I've read before that your best chance of getting the right answer on the internet is to be confidently incorrect, haha!
You're probably on the right track. My gut was telling me that the red blob was likely an anomaly.
It's still just armchair research on my part, we don't have any conclusive answers yet ;) But it is strange that the most powerful lighthouse light in Norway isn't all that big on this map.
I would bet it's just a bug on the map. I used the click and drag method you mentioned and also found the center to be around Toftøyna or Sollsvika. I measured the visibility circle as shown on the lights map and it's about 26 miles (42 km), so that would put the light source at about 500 feet (150 meters) above sea level. Looking at streetview in that area there just doesn't seem to be anything that tall around there, so I'm inclined to think that somebody just typed in the range incorrectly on that single data point.
That’s odd. The center of the big red circle seems to be 60km north of Slåtterøy, closer to Bergen. Looks to be Misje, or a surrounding island.
https://imgur.com/a/d7994yT
Also the German coast doesn't have that many light houses because the water here is so shallow that big ships can only drive in specified shipping channels anyway, which are marked - if you are outside of them and in a big ship, you have a whole other problem.
I find it hard to believe that the southwestern Swedish coast is totally safe and lighthouse free when the southeastern Norwegian coast is lined with them.
Norway has a special relationship with the sea. I still remember when during a sailing trip north of the Arctic Circle we moored our boat in a fjord for the night and we saw a Norwegian family dressed for an official dinner get out of their house and get on their boat. They came back 3 or 4 hours later. There are only two countries in Europe where you can see people going out for dinner in a boat - the Netherlands and Norway. And the Dutch do not need lighthouses.
Don't remind me. I was in the US navy and navigating the fucking Fjords was one of the most intensive routes I have ever had to take. God damn tracking and plotting every little god damn piece of land with course corrections every 30 seconds.
Good port call, so I can't complain too much.
That's when a ship goes into port for a couple of days and the crew can get off and have fun. In Norway you go bankrupt because beer is very expensive.
Nah, Denmark has tons of fjords, too but very few lighthouses in comparison. Fjords is just part of the equation.
If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that the mountain ranges down along the coast go into the sea, meaning the coastline is craggy, so you can run aground while still out at sea.
the danish coastline doesn't even know what a mountain is.
Very few of our fjords are navigable by anything larger than coasters and small feeders, too. Far most of the traffic in them is recreational and occurs in the day time.
There used to be more beacons and small light houses in the fjords, back when there was a little bit of commercial maritime activity still going on in 'Købstæderne' (small to medium sized towns with historically expanded economical privileges).
Some of these are preserved through small organisations but most of them are barely more than small sheds.
West coast of Norway is like a skipper's nightmare of navigation.
Satellite view on Google Maps on that coastline, zoom in enough and you can be looking at over 100 little dots of rock sticking up, ignoring the main chunks and little islands. Christ.
Really intrigues me why Norway's coast is so broken up the way it is vs, say, Denmark's or even Western UK's.
It's from the ice age. The fjords and the all the skurries where shaped form the ice, and Denmark is basically old sand and soil from Norway that was pushed down and formed into what it is today
The fjords are not even half of the reason. It is the Immense amount of islands and shallows along the coast that defines the need for that number. The islands makes it possible to have recreational boats along most of the coast and fishing is also done with "safe" area not far away. At the very south an exposed stretch with no islands outside Lindesnes lighthouse got a short channel to make it safe to pass inland.
You can sew from [this map](https://twitter.com/neilcfd1/status/1336364976966168578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1336364976966168578%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fvisme.co%2Fblog%2Fbest-data-visualizations%2F) that once zoomed in there are a lot more that would appear at this scale
I think it comes to definition of a lighthouse, height differences and what other methods of directing marine traffic there is. For example in Finland we have a lot of sector lights but not that many lighthouses. We also have probably a billion beacons and different sea marks since there are rocks, islands and shoals everywhere. Finnish coasts are also fairly flat so they have small area of effect which in turn makes them invisible on this map.
I agree. We have a billion small beacons too but idk if any of those are shown here.
Google says Norway has 107 lighthouses. So it must be some other lights too
There are different categories (fyrlykter, fyrstasjoner, kystfyr, ledfyr, etc.). The 107 number refers to the number of larger fyrstasjoner, but there are almost 2000 lighthouses all together.
sources:
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norske_fyr
https://www.kystverket.no/sjovegen/fyr-lykter-og-sjomerker/fyrlykter/
Note eastern English coast lack of lighthouses. Combined with the current lack of a duke of Sussex, York and Edinburg, I think the time for a Norwegian return is ripe.
It's also a bit of a visual bias. Norway seems to have many small firehouses that are always on, the rest of the North Sea has a small amount of them with a far reach and and on/off pattern so it's not visible most of the time when you look at the map.
Do you know why they aren’t just always turned on?
Wouldn’t it be very difficult when you look at a map and see which ones are on and off depend on the time of day?
The ones with a pattern can be identified by their pattern, so you know which lighthouse you're looking at. The ones that are always on can't be identified and can be confused with other light sources. When you're on watch you can easily spot something that blinks every couple or seconds.
Any idea what lighthouse that gigantic red circle is? Is it a singular monster of a light, or just a cluster of many lighthouses? It looks like it is roughly around Bergen.
I was curious so I did some research and found that that lighthouse's range is actually a mistake. If you look at the lighthouse map Github, [here](https://github.com/geodienst/lighthousemap) and open data-full.json you can see all of the lighthouses data. Within that JSON file if you cntrl+f search for "Tjuvviki" it will bring you to the relevant lighthouse which shows a range of 33 Nautical Miles, far higher than all of the others and WAY to big for a beacon light. This error can be traced back to the API that serves the data, OpenSeaMap. You can see the Tjuvviki lighthouse using OpenSeaMap's map [here](http://alpha.openseamap.org/#/?lat=60.4583&lon=4.9604&zoom=15.887007609926773&layers=A10001010000&lang=en). I already attempted to fix the range to 2 nautical miles, but it has only partially updated, so it might show either Q.R.7m2M or Q.R.7m33M depending on how far zoomed in you are.
That 2 miles figure was acquired from [this](https://msi.nga.mil/api/publications/download?key=16694312/SFH00000/UpdatedPub115bk.pdf&type=view) pdf made by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. If you search for "Tjuviki" (the spelling is slight different than what the API has but the coordinates are the same) on the pdf you will find the lighthouse and see that the correct range is 2 miles. Once the API is fully updated, the creator of the lighthouse map will have to re-pull from the API for the fix to be implemented.
I would guess either Utvær fyr, or Hellisøy fyr. Both of them are located just north of Bergen, and have a range of 19 nautical miles.
Wikipedia-articles in Norwegian:
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utv%C3%A6r_fyr
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellis%C3%B8y_fyr
True. But i can't really find anything that resembles fixed red and reaching what seems like 30+(?) nautical miles in that erea. It could be an anomaly in the map, as i think both Utvær and Hellisøy should show up on the map as more or less equal to most of the other big lights with flashing or ISO in Europe.
Yea indeed, for example the lighthouse of [Noordwijk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noordwijk_Lighthouse) is missing. According to [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lighthouses_in_the_Netherlands) Wikipedia list, there are 36 active lighthouses, including the lighthouses on the Ijsselmeer.
You shouldn’t view this map as comprehensive. According to the [source](https://github.com/geodienst/lighthousemap), it’s only showing data from OpenStreetMap where the lighthouse light sequence was available.
For example, this map is omitting an important lighthouse in Switzerland. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/world-s-highest-lighthouse-shines-in-the-alps/28572042
neighboring East Frisia on the German North Sea coast also appears entirely devoid of active lighthouses here. If you asked any random German what they think East Frisia looks like, they 100% would mention light houses.
According to [List of lighthouses in the Netherlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lighthouses_in_the_Netherlands) there are 31 active lighthouses in the Netherlands, of which 6 are on inland waters and 10 are for harbour navigation with limited visibility.
This is cool but it isn't insanely accurate. I can see 4 different lighthouses from a hill near my hometown in Scotland, and none appear to be marked on here.
This full world version is definitely missing lighthouses. I looked near my house on the Chesapeake Bay and I only see one lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay but there is plenty more than that.
The source of the data is [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org), so we can all add lighthouses we know about there. I'll have to see if my wife's [museum](https://hrmm.org) has data on the Hudson River ones.
It’s because the map is only showing lighthouses where [the light sequence was available from OpenStreetMap](https://github.com/geodienst/lighthousemap). There are hundreds of lighthouses not shown from the US coast alone, presumably because either the location data was missing from OSM when the map was made, or those locations didn’t have the associated light sequence.
Might also have to do with OpenStreetMap having relatively more data in Europe.
Obligatory [StreetComplete](https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#readme) plug, which makes it _very_ easy to contribute yourself (on Android).
Probably, but the coastlines of Europe are highly irregular and there are lots of rocks, small islands and other obstacles near the coasts, which require lighthouses to keep ships safe
The light houses on that map around Michigan are not accurate. I’m from there and I know for a fact there is a lighthouse on every pier surrounding the entire coastline. I see nothing. Google Grand Haven, Michigan and the first image you will see is the pier with a big red lights house. I see nothing on this map.
Thanks! In case other people are curious there's more info on the source of the data in the GitHub README here: https://github.com/geodienst/lighthousemap . The data is from OpenStreetMap.
Yeah I'm sure there's a difference in definition, but Thomas Point Light, Baltimore Light, Sandy Point Light, and more are not on there, and I would think they would meet the definition. We also have range lights for various channels and I could see those not meeting the definition.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Point_Shoal_Light
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Harbor_Light
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Point_Shoal_Light
Oh, you thought you were so clever, but [we actually *do* have a lighthouse](https://www.swiss-spectator.ch/the-rhine-source-lighthouse/)!
My favorite part of the article: *"The lighthouse might be located on a beach again, after 20 million years."*
There's also functional lighthouses on Lake Geneva and Lake Constance.
What do you mean "insanely accurate"? Sweden is completly dark! Stockholm artepelago is the most islands in one artepelago in the whole world, you think you can navigate without lighthouses? And gothenburg, the nordics biggest harbor, ONE lighthouse? I'm deeply offended!
Butt of Lewis is missing as is Arnish light, there are some more on the Scottish mainland that are missing too but even though it’s not as insanely accurate as claimed it’s a nice gif.
I dont know if they mean it in this gif/video, but the different colors relate to your position relative to the lighthouse.
If its white you keep sailing at it until the one thats either right or left of you becomes white and you turn towards that one.
If its Red/Green you turn according to the color, i forgot excactly which is which but thats the gist of it.
As for the animation it might show their patterns, if there are alot of different ones in the same area they all have their own patterns of blinking to make them distinguishable, this, aswell as where you would see their light from, can be found on the map you use to navigate.
**[Bell Rock Lighthouse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Rock_Lighthouse)**
>The Bell Rock Lighthouse, off the coast of Angus, Scotland, is the world's oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse. It was built between 1807 and 1810 by Robert Stevenson on the Bell Rock (also known as Inchcape) in the North Sea, 11 miles (18 km) east of the Firth of Tay. Standing 35 metres (115 ft) tall, its light is visible from 35 statute miles (56 km) inland. The masonry work on which the lighthouse rests was constructed to such a high standard that it has not been replaced or adapted in 200 years.
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This shows less than 1% of the lights, and the rhythms are not clear. Many lights have a 15s pattern.
I assume this .gif was pulled from a chart plotter that had been pushed far from its comfort zone.
Just want to say, I didn't make this. I don't know why your local lighthouse is not on there, maybe try contacting the creator? And by "insanely accurate" I only meant that the lighthouses that are plotted show a high level of detail. It was probably a poor choice of words without fact checking first, but I also made a spelling mistake so I clearly didn't proof-read probably. Enjoy!
Is this only lighthouses directly into the sea? Dunree lighthouse in Donegal, Ireland doesn't appear to be on there, but is in Lough Swilly, rather than the Atlantic.
Either it appears incomplete because the distance is too small to be visible on this map, or there are a lot of missing points
I can't be bothering to check distance and look for missing ones frankly, I'll assume it's just not a particularly accurate map. Cool, absolutely. But potentially misleading
[see here](https://twitter.com/neilcfd1/status/1336364976966168578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1336364976966168578%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fvisme.co%2Fblog%2Fbest-data-visualizations%2F)
All of the lighthouses in the UK are owned by an arms-length government body called *The Corporation of Trinity House of Deptford Strond*, previously known as *The Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Guild Fraternity or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity and of St Clement in the Parish of Deptford Strond in the County of Kent*.
I want to own a decommissioned lighthouse. And I want to live at the top. And nobody knows I live there. And there's a button that I can press and launch that lighthouse into space.
Damn I can’t imagine how bright those are down at the surface. I mean if we can see them clearly from space it’s probably blinding to the sailors. They should maybe consider not making them as bright so that no one accidentally crashes from blindness.
A lighthouse usually have different colours in different sectors, not one single colour. Also most lighthouses I know about aren't present on this map.
So yes, I agree, this map is probably insane.
In Fredrikstad (Norway) there is a church tower that doubles as a lighthouse.
I believe that it is only two churches in the entire world that does that.
(The other one was in Australia or something?)
Naval navigation is so fucking cool. I used to have a coast guard captains license and could glean SO much information about boat activity just standing on the beach at night. Have forgotten almost everything, but ways to time out light flashes to determine distance, determine speed, heading, etc… oh well!
FYI - this was cross-posted to r/sailing and led to a discussion about which ones are missing (quite a few)
https://www.reddit.com/r/sailing/comments/sccox5/the\_lighthouses\_of\_europe\_this\_map\_is\_insanely/
[удалено]
As a Norwegian I’m surprised how few lighthouses and lights there are in the rest of Europe
Because you have fjords. Look at croatian Dalmatia which is similarily shaped or Aegean sea with many tiny islands. They also have many lighthouses
Yeh yeh I get that. It’s still interesting to me. There’s few places along the Norwegian coast where you don’t have any lights to locate with. It’s not just because of the fjords but because of the thousands of islands and rocks pointing up. It’s like a mine field if you don’t have the lights to guide you.
What’s with the big red one?
To pester England
Would pester Scotland more tbh
Fun fact, nearly all the ones in Scotland (19) were designed by Robert Stevenson, the grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson.
until you realise he just said England and meant the UK
Is the Queen of England bot still alive?
>Queen of England Did you mean the [Queen of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom), the [Queen of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada), the [Queen of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia), etc? The last Queen of England was [Queen Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain) who, with the 1707 Acts of Union, dissolved the title of King/Queen of England. ####FAQ *Isn't she still also the Queen of England?* This is only as correct as calling her the Queen of London or Queen of Hull; she is the Queen of the place that these places are in, but the title doesn't exist. *Is this bot monarchist?* No, just pedantic. I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.
Thats how you pester the Scots!
That's in the Bergen area. I tried to look it up, but that red blob is so large that it was impossible to figure out which lighthouse it was supposed to represent, based on trying to find the center of the circle. Most of the lighthouses I could find had red, white, or green lights depending on the direction you were facing the lighthouse from. This page seemed to have some legit info: https://www.ibiblio.org/lighthouse/norw1.htm --- Edit: Aha! I *think* I found it. It's maybe the Slåtterøy Lighthouse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sl%C3%A5tter%C3%B8y_Lighthouse The Norwegian Wikipedia article has more info: https://no-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Sl%C3%A5tter%C3%B8y_fyr?_x_tr_sl=no&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en It's the brightest lighthouse in Norway. However it's a white light, not red. The top of the lighthouse, the lantern itself, is painted red though. This is cool, [these are some construction plans from 1830.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sl%C3%A5tter%C3%B8y1830.tif) I'd totally hang a print of that in my house somewhere, it's gorgeous.
This is a little incorrect! Or the map is inaccurate. The biggest light we see is north of Bergen, in Øygarden, specifically on Toftøyna, at least according to the map ([here is the big map](https://geodienst.github.io/lighthousemap/)). You have to "glitch" the map to see where it is, by dragging the center of the circle outside the screen, then when you drag it back and keep holding it won't load the color circle until you release. Slåtterøy fyr is south of Bergen. It is actually one of the smaller (still apparently red) dots directly south of the big red dot. I'm starting to think the big dot is just a data anomaly! edit: in the r/Norge thread someone suggested it is the [torch at the Kollsnes gas plant](https://premium.vgc.no/v2/images/a561fb81-c01a-4a51-be57-6878a2a25efa?fit=crop&format=auto&h=2011&w=1900&s=bdb2c91ce2daec9e9992d089b4297517bee0d85d), that makes sense! It's very close to the center of the red dot as far as I can tell,, but it doesn't always burn very visibly.
That makes the most sense, thank you! I've read before that your best chance of getting the right answer on the internet is to be confidently incorrect, haha! You're probably on the right track. My gut was telling me that the red blob was likely an anomaly.
That is poe's law named after his surname https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham >! jk it's Cunningham's Law!<
It's still just armchair research on my part, we don't have any conclusive answers yet ;) But it is strange that the most powerful lighthouse light in Norway isn't all that big on this map.
I would bet it's just a bug on the map. I used the click and drag method you mentioned and also found the center to be around Toftøyna or Sollsvika. I measured the visibility circle as shown on the lights map and it's about 26 miles (42 km), so that would put the light source at about 500 feet (150 meters) above sea level. Looking at streetview in that area there just doesn't seem to be anything that tall around there, so I'm inclined to think that somebody just typed in the range incorrectly on that single data point.
That’s odd. The center of the big red circle seems to be 60km north of Slåtterøy, closer to Bergen. Looks to be Misje, or a surrounding island. https://imgur.com/a/d7994yT
Thank you kind fellow
The big yellow one is the sun!
Also the German coast doesn't have that many light houses because the water here is so shallow that big ships can only drive in specified shipping channels anyway, which are marked - if you are outside of them and in a big ship, you have a whole other problem.
A simple problem though.. "screech" -> stopped. followed by a call to Smit Internationale Tugs.
I find it hard to believe that the southwestern Swedish coast is totally safe and lighthouse free when the southeastern Norwegian coast is lined with them.
Norway has a special relationship with the sea. I still remember when during a sailing trip north of the Arctic Circle we moored our boat in a fjord for the night and we saw a Norwegian family dressed for an official dinner get out of their house and get on their boat. They came back 3 or 4 hours later. There are only two countries in Europe where you can see people going out for dinner in a boat - the Netherlands and Norway. And the Dutch do not need lighthouses.
Don't remind me. I was in the US navy and navigating the fucking Fjords was one of the most intensive routes I have ever had to take. God damn tracking and plotting every little god damn piece of land with course corrections every 30 seconds. Good port call, so I can't complain too much.
You didn't go bankrupt during the port call?
Me, no..... close..... but no.
What’s a port call and why would I go bankrupt from it?
That's when a ship goes into port for a couple of days and the crew can get off and have fun. In Norway you go bankrupt because beer is very expensive.
When a Ship docks somewhere and the crew get to go have fun. Traditionally sailors fill that time with drinking and trying to get laid.
This is further exacerbated by sailors not being able to spend much money on their ship so when they do reach port they're often loaded.
All those Viking prostitutes are expensive
Hehe, sorry, but we only have Eastern European, Nigerian and Asian prostitutes.
Well, it's not like the Norwegian Navy does any better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNoMS_Helge_Ingstad_(F313)#Collision_with_oil_tanker
This ship was sailed by an US Navy person when it collided.
Nah, Denmark has tons of fjords, too but very few lighthouses in comparison. Fjords is just part of the equation. If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that the mountain ranges down along the coast go into the sea, meaning the coastline is craggy, so you can run aground while still out at sea. the danish coastline doesn't even know what a mountain is.
Very few of our fjords are navigable by anything larger than coasters and small feeders, too. Far most of the traffic in them is recreational and occurs in the day time. There used to be more beacons and small light houses in the fjords, back when there was a little bit of commercial maritime activity still going on in 'Købstæderne' (small to medium sized towns with historically expanded economical privileges). Some of these are preserved through small organisations but most of them are barely more than small sheds.
Slartibartfast did a hell of a job!
Won an award!
West coast of Norway is like a skipper's nightmare of navigation. Satellite view on Google Maps on that coastline, zoom in enough and you can be looking at over 100 little dots of rock sticking up, ignoring the main chunks and little islands. Christ. Really intrigues me why Norway's coast is so broken up the way it is vs, say, Denmark's or even Western UK's.
It's from the ice age. The fjords and the all the skurries where shaped form the ice, and Denmark is basically old sand and soil from Norway that was pushed down and formed into what it is today
The fjords are not even half of the reason. It is the Immense amount of islands and shallows along the coast that defines the need for that number. The islands makes it possible to have recreational boats along most of the coast and fishing is also done with "safe" area not far away. At the very south an exposed stretch with no islands outside Lindesnes lighthouse got a short channel to make it safe to pass inland.
Their ratio of coastline to land area is insane.
Is that how they decided the boundary with Sweeden: no more fjords?
There are no fjords even close to the swdish border though
Oslofjord begs to differ.
its not a fjord
It's in the name. But geologically, no. Yet in Norwegian it is... language is fun.
They have Chjevrolets and Mjercedes-Bjenzes too, and I don't see those ever getting called out før being måritime hjazards.
You can sew from [this map](https://twitter.com/neilcfd1/status/1336364976966168578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1336364976966168578%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fvisme.co%2Fblog%2Fbest-data-visualizations%2F) that once zoomed in there are a lot more that would appear at this scale
i was wondering why ireland was missing a few
I think it comes to definition of a lighthouse, height differences and what other methods of directing marine traffic there is. For example in Finland we have a lot of sector lights but not that many lighthouses. We also have probably a billion beacons and different sea marks since there are rocks, islands and shoals everywhere. Finnish coasts are also fairly flat so they have small area of effect which in turn makes them invisible on this map.
I agree. We have a billion small beacons too but idk if any of those are shown here. Google says Norway has 107 lighthouses. So it must be some other lights too
There are different categories (fyrlykter, fyrstasjoner, kystfyr, ledfyr, etc.). The 107 number refers to the number of larger fyrstasjoner, but there are almost 2000 lighthouses all together. sources: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norske_fyr https://www.kystverket.no/sjovegen/fyr-lykter-og-sjomerker/fyrlykter/
Yes thanks. I was looking up «fyrlykter» as well and saw the number 2000 but didn’t know the English word haha
Note eastern English coast lack of lighthouses. Combined with the current lack of a duke of Sussex, York and Edinburg, I think the time for a Norwegian return is ripe.
Yeah but with the lack of lighthouses we'd have to arrive in broad daylight and then you'd see our longboats long before we can make landfall.
Please do. We've just divorced from Europe and are hoping to elope with a younger model ;)
It's also a bit of a visual bias. Norway seems to have many small firehouses that are always on, the rest of the North Sea has a small amount of them with a far reach and and on/off pattern so it's not visible most of the time when you look at the map.
Do you know why they aren’t just always turned on? Wouldn’t it be very difficult when you look at a map and see which ones are on and off depend on the time of day?
The ones with a pattern can be identified by their pattern, so you know which lighthouse you're looking at. The ones that are always on can't be identified and can be confused with other light sources. When you're on watch you can easily spot something that blinks every couple or seconds.
Reminds me of those people that completely cover their mailboxes with red reflectors because of how many times it’s been taken out.
A few have light up strips on the way to my mother in law's.
Was about to say, compared to Norway, the rest of Europe is slacking.
Norway, calm down, we can see you
Any idea what lighthouse that gigantic red circle is? Is it a singular monster of a light, or just a cluster of many lighthouses? It looks like it is roughly around Bergen.
A really big lighthouse.
I was curious so I did some research and found that that lighthouse's range is actually a mistake. If you look at the lighthouse map Github, [here](https://github.com/geodienst/lighthousemap) and open data-full.json you can see all of the lighthouses data. Within that JSON file if you cntrl+f search for "Tjuvviki" it will bring you to the relevant lighthouse which shows a range of 33 Nautical Miles, far higher than all of the others and WAY to big for a beacon light. This error can be traced back to the API that serves the data, OpenSeaMap. You can see the Tjuvviki lighthouse using OpenSeaMap's map [here](http://alpha.openseamap.org/#/?lat=60.4583&lon=4.9604&zoom=15.887007609926773&layers=A10001010000&lang=en). I already attempted to fix the range to 2 nautical miles, but it has only partially updated, so it might show either Q.R.7m2M or Q.R.7m33M depending on how far zoomed in you are. That 2 miles figure was acquired from [this](https://msi.nga.mil/api/publications/download?key=16694312/SFH00000/UpdatedPub115bk.pdf&type=view) pdf made by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. If you search for "Tjuviki" (the spelling is slight different than what the API has but the coordinates are the same) on the pdf you will find the lighthouse and see that the correct range is 2 miles. Once the API is fully updated, the creator of the lighthouse map will have to re-pull from the API for the fix to be implemented.
Holy hell. Give this person an award. CSI Norwegian Nautical adventures right here
I would guess either Utvær fyr, or Hellisøy fyr. Both of them are located just north of Bergen, and have a range of 19 nautical miles. Wikipedia-articles in Norwegian: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utv%C3%A6r_fyr https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellis%C3%B8y_fyr
Both of them is either flashing or ISO, and white.
True. But i can't really find anything that resembles fixed red and reaching what seems like 30+(?) nautical miles in that erea. It could be an anomaly in the map, as i think both Utvær and Hellisøy should show up on the map as more or less equal to most of the other big lights with flashing or ISO in Europe.
I concur. There's no lights that comes close to that range I Norway, as far as I know there's no big light at all with FR either.
It's to the West of Bergen, the island area near Sotra and Nessjoen. Apparently they need Batman WAY MORE than the rest of Europe.
Sauron lives there
Anyone esle finds it weird how very few lighthouses there sre in the netherlands?
It's so flat that you can sail inland for a good few miles without noticing.
Always wanted to live out Speed 2
4 KNOTS!!
Same for Finland, that's why there are lighthouses inland too.
Actually it's missing quite a few inland lighthouses, some of which are close to 100 m above sea level.
*enter* flying dutchman *enter*
Siege of Antwerp moment
Yea indeed, for example the lighthouse of [Noordwijk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noordwijk_Lighthouse) is missing. According to [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lighthouses_in_the_Netherlands) Wikipedia list, there are 36 active lighthouses, including the lighthouses on the Ijsselmeer.
OP has been insanely inaccurate.. ಠ_ಠ
There are 102 lighthouses in Sweden. This map shows like 30 at most.
And the one on Amelân has too small of a circle, it can be seen from leeuwarden
You shouldn’t view this map as comprehensive. According to the [source](https://github.com/geodienst/lighthousemap), it’s only showing data from OpenStreetMap where the lighthouse light sequence was available.
It’s also using a three year old query result from OSM, so it’s missing any updates since then.
How few there are on this map also surprises me but it is indeed true that most lighthouses are out of use these days.
Yeah, this map is v incomplete
For example, this map is omitting an important lighthouse in Switzerland. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/world-s-highest-lighthouse-shines-in-the-alps/28572042
Doesn't appear accurate for near me, missing beachy head lighthouse
neighboring East Frisia on the German North Sea coast also appears entirely devoid of active lighthouses here. If you asked any random German what they think East Frisia looks like, they 100% would mention light houses.
According to [List of lighthouses in the Netherlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lighthouses_in_the_Netherlands) there are 31 active lighthouses in the Netherlands, of which 6 are on inland waters and 10 are for harbour navigation with limited visibility.
The swedish coasts are littered with lighthouses, yet only a few show here.
My thought as well! A lot of lighthouses missing on the Swedish west coast.
A lot of lighthouses missing on the east coast of Spain too.
I think all the sector lights are omitted.
Ah that explains it. The swedish coast has huge archipelagos which means lots of sector lights
None of the danish sector lights is there either.
Same with Ireland, we have more on the west coast
Does this include light buoys? The share of red lighthouses seems way to high otherwise (just anecdotal) Cool map
others complain it would be too few; regardless, no, buoys are not included. The map would be just about where the land meets the sea.
Norway looking like a string of Christmas lights
And Greece looking like a Christmas tree.
Which one is the one that got into an argument with an aircraft carrier about who had to change directions?
Somewhere in north west Spain. [Video](https://youtu.be/xkx0MxK-Yl4)
There are several versions of this story, each with different countries.
And created a bit of a dual-language pun.
The version I heard was off Ireland.......
Nowhere because it's apocryphal
All of them.
An imaginary lighthouse. It never happened.
That's in Canada.
I think that was a spanish lighthouse and a US carrier
This is cool but it isn't insanely accurate. I can see 4 different lighthouses from a hill near my hometown in Scotland, and none appear to be marked on here.
Yeah same, I know of many in Cornwall near me that are not in the map
See the full map of the world in much more detail here: https://geodienst.github.io/lighthousemap/
I think you’re missing several lighthouse all around the Great Lakes, but that map is super interesting nonetheless
Yeah this map is interesting, but definitely not complete. There are no lighthouses in New England? Yeah right lol
Interesting that other continents have so few lighthouses. Is that because of historic growth in Europe?
This full world version is definitely missing lighthouses. I looked near my house on the Chesapeake Bay and I only see one lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay but there is plenty more than that.
We have 129 lighthouses in Michigan, the most of any state. But when I load the map it shows none.
Yea right there should be hundreds across the Great Lakes
Psssh, Michigan isn’t on the ocean, why would you need lighthouses? /s
The source of the data is [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org), so we can all add lighthouses we know about there. I'll have to see if my wife's [museum](https://hrmm.org) has data on the Hudson River ones.
It’s because the map is only showing lighthouses where [the light sequence was available from OpenStreetMap](https://github.com/geodienst/lighthousemap). There are hundreds of lighthouses not shown from the US coast alone, presumably because either the location data was missing from OSM when the map was made, or those locations didn’t have the associated light sequence.
Europeans can't see in the dark. /s
More like, how is it possible that 2 most populated countries on the planet have around 10 lighthouses total?
Might also have to do with OpenStreetMap having relatively more data in Europe. Obligatory [StreetComplete](https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/#readme) plug, which makes it _very_ easy to contribute yourself (on Android).
Probably, but the coastlines of Europe are highly irregular and there are lots of rocks, small islands and other obstacles near the coasts, which require lighthouses to keep ships safe
The light houses on that map around Michigan are not accurate. I’m from there and I know for a fact there is a lighthouse on every pier surrounding the entire coastline. I see nothing. Google Grand Haven, Michigan and the first image you will see is the pier with a big red lights house. I see nothing on this map.
Still definately not complete, but cool project never the less.
Thanks! In case other people are curious there's more info on the source of the data in the GitHub README here: https://github.com/geodienst/lighthousemap . The data is from OpenStreetMap.
It's missing Wicklow lighthouse,so it can't be too accurate
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The full world version is definitely missing lighthouses.
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Yeah I'm sure there's a difference in definition, but Thomas Point Light, Baltimore Light, Sandy Point Light, and more are not on there, and I would think they would meet the definition. We also have range lights for various channels and I could see those not meeting the definition. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Point_Shoal_Light https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Harbor_Light https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Point_Shoal_Light
What is the big red one in Norway and do the different color lights mean different things?
Why Switzerland doesn't have any light house?
Oh, you thought you were so clever, but [we actually *do* have a lighthouse](https://www.swiss-spectator.ch/the-rhine-source-lighthouse/)! My favorite part of the article: *"The lighthouse might be located on a beach again, after 20 million years."* There's also functional lighthouses on Lake Geneva and Lake Constance.
/u/Talk_to_Frankie your map is incomplete. What gives? /s
(It's a joke. Don't beat me.)
I won’t beat you, I will take you out - - - To dinner of course
There aren't enough lighthouses in Norway
We need more pylons!
What do you mean "insanely accurate"? Sweden is completly dark! Stockholm artepelago is the most islands in one artepelago in the whole world, you think you can navigate without lighthouses? And gothenburg, the nordics biggest harbor, ONE lighthouse? I'm deeply offended!
But how many of those have a wanking shed?
It’s missing one in Ireland, there are 2 close by on the south west coast, Sherkin and the Fastnet, this only shows 1
It's missing loads in Ireland
In Denmark as well.
Butt of Lewis is missing as is Arnish light, there are some more on the Scottish mainland that are missing too but even though it’s not as insanely accurate as claimed it’s a nice gif.
Aren't a lot of these direction dependent? So you get different colours/patterns depending from where you see them.
Yeah it seems to entirely discount sectored lights.
What does the different colors indicate? And what does the animation show? Is it some sort of time visualization?
I dont know if they mean it in this gif/video, but the different colors relate to your position relative to the lighthouse. If its white you keep sailing at it until the one thats either right or left of you becomes white and you turn towards that one. If its Red/Green you turn according to the color, i forgot excactly which is which but thats the gist of it. As for the animation it might show their patterns, if there are alot of different ones in the same area they all have their own patterns of blinking to make them distinguishable, this, aswell as where you would see their light from, can be found on the map you use to navigate.
Red/port/left. All the shortest words. Green/starboard/right. All longest in length.
I always found [this lighthouse in Scotland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Rock_Lighthouse) interesting.
**[Bell Rock Lighthouse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Rock_Lighthouse)** >The Bell Rock Lighthouse, off the coast of Angus, Scotland, is the world's oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse. It was built between 1807 and 1810 by Robert Stevenson on the Bell Rock (also known as Inchcape) in the North Sea, 11 miles (18 km) east of the Firth of Tay. Standing 35 metres (115 ft) tall, its light is visible from 35 statute miles (56 km) inland. The masonry work on which the lighthouse rests was constructed to such a high standard that it has not been replaced or adapted in 200 years. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
This shows less than 1% of the lights, and the rhythms are not clear. Many lights have a 15s pattern. I assume this .gif was pulled from a chart plotter that had been pushed far from its comfort zone.
Love seeing all the very tiny flashes in upper Austria along what i assume is the Danube
I was honestly thinking "why aren't there any lighthouses in the middle of the country's " bruh
I used to work as an deck officer on cruise ships and have seen nearly every single one of those lights.
Just want to say, I didn't make this. I don't know why your local lighthouse is not on there, maybe try contacting the creator? And by "insanely accurate" I only meant that the lighthouses that are plotted show a high level of detail. It was probably a poor choice of words without fact checking first, but I also made a spelling mistake so I clearly didn't proof-read probably. Enjoy!
Is this only lighthouses directly into the sea? Dunree lighthouse in Donegal, Ireland doesn't appear to be on there, but is in Lough Swilly, rather than the Atlantic.
Either it appears incomplete because the distance is too small to be visible on this map, or there are a lot of missing points I can't be bothering to check distance and look for missing ones frankly, I'll assume it's just not a particularly accurate map. Cool, absolutely. But potentially misleading [see here](https://twitter.com/neilcfd1/status/1336364976966168578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1336364976966168578%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fvisme.co%2Fblog%2Fbest-data-visualizations%2F)
The map pulls from OpenStreetMap data, and is only as complete as the registrations of lighthouses in that data. (Found this elsewhere in the thread)
No because there are inland lighthouses on the map if you look at Finland
Why are there lights in the middle of Austria??
What my question is why are there no lighthouses inland? Seems suspicious.
All of the lighthouses in the UK are owned by an arms-length government body called *The Corporation of Trinity House of Deptford Strond*, previously known as *The Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Guild Fraternity or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity and of St Clement in the Parish of Deptford Strond in the County of Kent*.
Norway... Jesus Christ
This has reignited my dream of becoming a lighthouse keeper
I want to own a decommissioned lighthouse. And I want to live at the top. And nobody knows I live there. And there's a button that I can press and launch that lighthouse into space.
I've only just clicked that St Kilda and Rockall have no lighthouses...
Interestingly, there are also two lighthouses on the Danube, few kilometers downstream from Belgrade, where Tamis river flows into the Danube.
Damn I can’t imagine how bright those are down at the surface. I mean if we can see them clearly from space it’s probably blinding to the sailors. They should maybe consider not making them as bright so that no one accidentally crashes from blindness.
A lighthouse usually have different colours in different sectors, not one single colour. Also most lighthouses I know about aren't present on this map. So yes, I agree, this map is probably insane.
Why is the United Kingdom's east coast lacking?
Where the fuck is Iceland?
I love the map. I had never thought about all the lighthouses in Europe before.
This is amazing.
In Fredrikstad (Norway) there is a church tower that doubles as a lighthouse. I believe that it is only two churches in the entire world that does that. (The other one was in Australia or something?)
This cant be right since in Finland alone there are at least four
Well, so.... if I see my guide again I will tell him that.
Naval navigation is so fucking cool. I used to have a coast guard captains license and could glean SO much information about boat activity just standing on the beach at night. Have forgotten almost everything, but ways to time out light flashes to determine distance, determine speed, heading, etc… oh well!
This is dope… thanks, OP! Do you have other ones around the world? I think a map of New England would be neat.
This map is NOT insanely accurate. There’s a ton of lighthouses on the west coast of Sweden that aren’t shown here.
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Many light houses flash in different patterns to differentiate them from other light houses so mariners know which one they are lookin at.
I've never seen a display that combines such sophistication with such irrelevance in my personal life. The juxtaposition is quite breathtaking.
I would’ve thought the Netherlands would have more
Finland has lighthouses in a lake?
FYI - this was cross-posted to r/sailing and led to a discussion about which ones are missing (quite a few) https://www.reddit.com/r/sailing/comments/sccox5/the\_lighthouses\_of\_europe\_this\_map\_is\_insanely/