Hua'ao Lighthouse

Hua'ao Lighthouse

Hua'ao Lighthouse is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Hua'ao Lighthouse is located at the northwest tip of Hua'ao Mountain in Hua'ao Township, Shengsi County, Zhoushan City, Zhejiang Province. It is an extra-large lighthouse situated at the northernmost end of China's Zhoushan Archipelago, along the shipping route from the Yangtze River estuary to the Pacific Ocean.

Hua'ao Lighthouse was first built in the ninth year of the Tongzhi reign during the Qing Dynasty (1870). In the late Qing Dynasty, Shanghai, Ningbo, and inland ports along the Yangtze River successively opened as treaty ports, and their shipping routes to Japan and the Pacific became increasingly busy. Hua'ao Island is located along these essential routes, and the surrounding area has numerous reefs. Among the first group of lighthouses planned by the Qing Customs Maritime Department, Hua'ao Island Lighthouse was included. Eventually, the lighthouse was funded by Britain, constructed with laborers recruited from Shanghai, and completed in 1870. The lighthouse was subsequently managed by the British until it underwent renovation in 1916. After the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1943, Japan took over the lighthouse. The Nationalist Government once sent aircraft to bomb it, but the damage was minimal. In 1950, the lighthouse was occupied by the People's Liberation Army and is now under the administration of the Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration.

The lower part of the lighthouse is white, built with concrete bricks and stones, while the upper part is black, primarily made of iron plates. The interior of the lighthouse has four floors. The top features a copper dome equipped with a wind vane. The top floor uses large glass panels as walls and houses the light source. The floor below has an external gallery, allowing visitors to look out over the sea. Surrounding the lighthouse are auxiliary facilities including a radio tower, power generation room, engine room, warehouse, dormitory, and dock. The entire site covers approximately 22,000 square meters, and both the architecture and decorations feature European styles.

The lighthouse offers comprehensive navigational methods, including light waves, radio waves, and sound waves, providing different aids to navigation for vessels at varying distances. A searchlight is installed at the center of the top floor of the lighthouse, using a 2-kilowatt halogen lamp surrounded by four lenses and a rotating mechanism that completes one rotation per minute. This setup enables the searchlight to emit four beams of light simultaneously, with a range of 24 nautical miles. Two radio towers have been built around the lighthouse, offering long-distance radio navigation services that broadcast a signal every 15 minutes to ships, reporting their latitude and longitude. During foggy conditions, the lighthouse also provides short-range sound navigation, emitting two consecutive horn blasts every 80 seconds, with each blast lasting 1.5 seconds. The sound can travel up to 4 nautical miles, making it the farthest-reaching foghorn in China, locally nicknamed the "Old Ox" call.

Hua'ao Lighthouse embodies the most advanced navigational beacon technology in the world at the end of the 19th century. With continuous updates alongside technological advancements, it has always been the largest, most functional, best-equipped, and oldest lighthouse among China’s hundreds of coastal lighthouses, ranking among the top in the world. Known as the “Far East’s No. 1 Lighthouse,” it serves as an important navigational marker for ships entering Shanghai Port along the north-south routes of the Far East and China.

In 2001, Hua'ao Lighthouse, as a structure built in 1870, was listed by the State Council in the fifth group of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Address: Northwest end of Hua'ao Island, Shengsi County, Zhoushan City

Type: Lighthouse

Recommended visiting time: About 1 hour

Opening hours:

Open all day

Ticket information:

No admission fee.

Transportation

Take a boat (Shengxiang No. 2) from Xiaocai Wharf; two daily departures, 30 RMB per ticket

Further reading:

· Fifth batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units