Långe Jan

Sweden’s tallest lighthouse began as someone else’s chapel. When authorities decided the southern tip of Öland needed a beacon in 1785, they didn’t bother quarrying new stone. They tore down the nearby medieval chapel of St. Johannes and built the tower from its limestone, likely with labor from Russian prisoners of war, and inherited the chapel’s name in the process: Jan is simply the short form of Johannes. The slate above the entrance still bears the year and the name of Gustaf III, the king who commissioned it.

For the structure’s first decades, the light source was an open coal fire burning on a platform at the top, a method that worked well enough but came with the obvious drawback of being an open fire exposed to Baltic weather. In 1822, authorities enclosed it, fitting a hoisting device to bring coal up more efficiently. By 1845 the tower had been painted white, fitted with an actual lantern housing a colza oil lamp, and given the black band that still marks it today. Electrification came in 1948, full automation in 1980.

What’s left is a 41.6-meter tower, 197 steps from base to gallery, holding the title of Sweden’s tallest lighthouse and standing watch, these days, over rather less combustible cargo. The grounds around it form part of Ottenby, one of the country’s premier bird migration corridors, with 377 species recorded passing through over the years.

Gustaf III commissioned a beacon. Two and a half centuries later, it mostly works as a very tall place for ornithologists to stand.