Adjustments during assembly of an illuminating unit having a conventional light pipe in order to position the light pipe and a light guide plate are laborious. Further, a minute prism group having a pitch on the order of 100 .mu.m must be provided to a side surface of the light pipe in order to uniformly guide illuminating light to the light guide plate. An illuminating unit of the present invention is provided with a light guide plate having an illuminating surface that is illuminated by light from a point light source, and a light pipe having an incident surface to which light from the point light source is made incident and an emerging portion from which the light emerges to the light guide plate. The emerging portion and the light guide plate are integrally joined.