To materialize uniform illumination having good efficiency and desired parallelism by using a minute surface light source such as a LED.

This lighting system is composed of the LED 1 which is the minute surface light source having diffused radiation characteristics, a light guide rod 10 or a taper rod 13 as a columnar light guide means having a light entering end face, a light emitting end face, and a reflecting surface to guide a part or all of light from the LED 1 which is taken in from the light entering end face, and an illumination lens 11 as an angular position converting means to convert light distribution angle intensity of the emitted light from the light emitting end face of the light guide rod 10 or the taper rod 13 to positional intensity in a prescribed irradiation region.