To provide a lighting unit which can facilitate light control such as a high emission efficiency and uniform brightness even while preventing a light control element from being visualized from an observer side.

A lighting unit includes a light guide plate having: a light source; an incident surface which makes light emitted from the light source incident; a reflection surface which reflects light made incident from the incident surface; and an emission surface which is opposite to the reflection surface and emits light reflected by the reflection surface. Therein, dimples which are concaved two-dimensionally with respect to the inside of the reflection surface of the light guide plate are formed and a cross-sectional shape with respect to the direction substantially vertical to the incident surface of the dimples at an arbitrary position substantially accord with a top part area of the cross-sectional shape at the center position of the dimples.