A reflective liquid crystal display device is integrated with a liquid crystal display panel (1), detects display surface illuminance by a plurality of light sensors (10) provided in the vicinity of the display surface, and in accordance with the detection result, controls luminous intensity of a front light (lighting means) (19) using a lighting control circuit (22) so that the display surface illuminance becomes a predetermined magnitude. Even if the use environment of the reflective liquid crystal display device changes, or more specifically, intensity of external light shone from outside of the device into the display surface varies, the configuration allows controlling automatically the amount of emission from the front light to automatically maintain an appropriate display luminance and to reduce electric power consumption.