To provide a lighting device in which luminance unevenness in a display surface is prevented or restrained with a simple structure.

The backlight device is provided with a plurality of LEDs 24, LED substrates each having the LED 24 mounted on its plate face, and a chassis having a bottom plate on which the LED substrates are installed in a way the LEDs 24 are exposed, diffusion lenses 27 each installed on each of the LEDs 24, covering a light emission side of the LED 24, and diffusing light from the LED 24, a reflection sheet 29 installed straddling over the LED substrates and the bottom plate, and equipped with a light source insertion holes 29d for inserting the LEDs 24 installed at sites superimposed with the LEDs 24, and contact members 30 of a strip shape in contact with the reflection sheet 29 in interposition between the reflection sheet 29 and the diffusion lens 27 each in a manner straddling over the plurality of the diffusion lenses 27.