To provide a surface lighting device with stable high display quality which uses LEDs as a light source and a liquid crystal display device equipped with the device.

The surface lighting device has: a surface type light source section 30 equipped with a plurality of LEDs 14; a dummy liquid crystal panel 17 which has a pair of substrates and a liquid crystal layer charged between the pair of substrates and on which part of the light from the light source 30 is incident; a chromaticity sensor 18 which detects the chromaticity of light transmitted through the dummy liquid crystal panel 17; and an LED control section 22 which compares the detected chromaticity with a set target value and controls the plurality of LEDs 14 so that the chromaticity approximates the target value.