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A gate of two uprights and two crossbars, marking the entrance to a shrine.
Also known as: Shinto gate, Shrine gate, Japanese gate symbol
A torii is a gateway of two uprights carrying two horizontal beams, the upper one usually curving upward at its ends. It marks the transition into a Shinto shrine's grounds — a boundary rather than a barrier, since it has no doors and can be walked around. Its outline is also the standard symbol for a shrine on Japanese maps, which is where most readers outside Japan first meet it as a symbol rather than as a structure.
Is the standard map symbol for a Shinto shrine in Japanese cartography, which is how the outline is most often met as a symbol rather than as a structure.
Contexts: Navigation, Maps
Comes in many named structural types differing in the curve of the upper beam, the shape of the uprights and whether the lower beam projects — differences that identify a shrine's affiliation to somebody who knows them.
Contexts: Religion
Marks a boundary rather than blocking one. It has no doors and can be walked round, and passing through it is a transition into the shrine's grounds rather than an entry that can be refused.
Contexts: Religion
Two vertical posts carrying two horizontal beams, the upper beam longer and curving up at both ends, the lower beam set a little below it and often stopping at the posts.
Both are met at Shinto shrines.