Arai Barrier

The Arai Barrier was a security checkpoint which was established by the Tokugawa Shogunate on the Tōkaidō highway connecting the capital of Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. Its official name was the Imagire Barier. In 1921, the site was recognized as a National Historic Site, and in recognition that it had only surviving Edo-period checkpoint structure remaining in the country, its status was upgraded to that of a Special National Historic Site in 1962.