Kosai City

Japan's only surviving checkpoint building.

Arai Checkpoint

Photo by Yanajin33 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

01 ／ Checkpoint

Even women bound for Edoneeded a pass here.

The Arai Checkpoint (新居関所) was set up in 1600 beside the Imagire ferry landing, where travellers crossed Lake Hamana by boat. It strictly inspected guns and women passing through, and this checkpoint alone required a travel pass even from women heading into Edo. The present Menbansho (面番所) was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1854. It is the only checkpoint building left in Japan, and a Special Historic Site.

Set up in 1600
The only one left in Japan
Special Historic Site

02 ／ Invention

The founder of the Toyota Groupwas born in Yamaguchi, in this city.

Toyoda Sakichi was born in 1867 in what is now Yamaguchi, Kosai. In 1890 he made his first invention, the Toyoda wooden hand loom, and in 1924 he completed the Type G automatic loom, which replenished the weft without stopping. The money from selling its patent went into research on Japanese-made cars. The Sakichi Toyoda Memorial House (豊田佐吉記念館) stands around his birthplace.

Born 1867
Type G automatic loom, 1924
Memorial house opened 1988

03 ／ Hand-held fireworks

Hugging bamboo tubes of powder,they send up pillars of fire.

The Enshū Arai hand-held fireworks, tezutsu hanabi (手筒花火), were already part of the Suwa Shrine (諏訪神社) festival by the Jōkyō era (1684–1688). Local people make everything themselves, from cutting the bamboo to packing the gunpowder. Over two nights in late July each year, more than 2,000 are set off, with dozens of pillars of fire rising at once.

Already held in the Jōkyō era
Over 2,000 in two nights
Late July every year

Living here

Three JR stations and four on the Tenhama Line.

about 60,000 people

The city has three stations on the JR Tōkaidō Main Line (Shinjohara, Washizu and Araimachi) and four on the Tenryu Hamanako Railroad (Shinjohara, Asumo-Mae, Omori and Chibata). The nearest to City Hall is Washizu Station, about a 15-minute walk. The city borders Toyohashi in Aichi Prefecture, and many students commute from home to universities in Nagoya.

People living here: 57,885people
Area: 86.56km²
Households: 23,005households
Rent (average for rentals): 47,922yen
Healthcare: 2 hospitals ／ 40 clinics

Area and habitable land at the same scalee-Stat B1101 / B1103

Population from 2010 onward (municipal boundary changed).2010-03-23 に編入合併（新居町）。2010年調査から市域が変わっている。

Children waiting for childcare: —8 nurseries and similar
Home purchase subsidy: —
Average annual temperature: —

These 3 items are waiting on a nationwide data source. We do not fill them with estimates.

Shape

Borders 2 municipalities across 1 prefectures.

Kosai City in Japan34.718°N 137.532°E

Territory of Kosai City

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)

North to south

12.6km

Shizuoka Prefecture: 浜松市
Aichi Prefecture: 豊橋市

Travel times per leg are not published by the municipality, so they are not shown.

Kosai City isthis kind of town.

01It has the Arai Checkpoint, the only checkpoint building left in Japan
02Toyoda Sakichi, founder of the Toyota Group, was born here, and a memorial house stands around his birthplace
03The Enshū Arai hand-held fireworks, already held in the Jōkyō era, go up every late July

See the town as it is now.

Source: Wikidata (P2002, P2003, P2013, P2397)

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Kosai City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗