Cordouan Lighthouse
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
Seals, want-to-go and the year you stood here are recorded in the iPhone app.
How it came to be
Cordouan lighthouse stands on a rocky plateau 7 kilometres out to sea at the mouth of the Gironde estuary in western France. By the late 16th century the old tower had fallen into disrepair, and the danger to shipping threatened Bordeaux's wine trade. Work on the present lighthouse began in 1584 to a design by the Paris architect Louis de Foix and was finished in 1611.
De Foix set the keepers' rooms, a King's Apartment and a domed chapel decorated with mosaic on a round base built to take the waves. From 1782 to 1789 the engineer Joseph Teulère raised the tower, and in 1790 he devised a revolving light. In 1823 the first rotating Fresnel lens system, invented by Augustin-Jean Fresnel, was installed here.
The lighthouse became a historic monument in 1862. It was automated in 2006 but still has keepers, and it is 67.5 metres high. It was inscribed in 2021.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).