Proposal:Man made=ceremonial gate

Proposal

Introduce a new value for the key man_made=*: man_made=ceremonial_gate, to represent traditional symbolic gates in East Asian cultural regions. These include:

• Chinese paifang (牌坊) / pailou (牌楼)
• Japanese torii (鳥居)
• Korean hongsalmun (紅箭門) / iljumun (一柱門)
• Vietnamese tam quan (三關門)

These gates:

• Have the shape of a gate but do not have door panels
• Are not attached to adjacent buildings
• Do not obstruct passage — they are symbolic, not functional barriers
• Have religious, cultural, or commemorative significance

Rationale

Many historical and symbolic gates in East Asia serve ceremonial, cultural, and often religious functions. These structures typically mark a transition between secular and sacred spaces, commemorate individuals or events, or symbolize virtues. They are:

• Not ordinary access-control gates (barrier=gate)
• Not generic monuments (historic=monument)

Currently, these structures are inconsistently tagged:

• man_made=paifang (600+ uses)
• man_made=pailou (7 uses)
• man_made=torii (10,000+ uses)
• man_made=hongsalmun (37 uses)
• man_made=iljumun (5 uses)

This proposal aims to standardize their tagging under a common, culturally sensitive and historically appropriate value.

Although this proposal was originally intended to use historic=ceremonial_gate, it was later changed to man_made=ceremonial_gate. The reason is that not all such structures are historical in nature — many are modern constructions that continue traditional styles or serve ceremonial purposes today. Using man_made=* allows both historical and contemporary examples to be tagged consistently, without implying that all are heritage sites.

Broader Applicability

While the initial focus is on East Asian traditions, ceremonial gates also exist in other cultures. User @adreamy has further clarified the concept:

A ceremonial gate is not an ordinary gate (barrier=gate), not just a monument (historic=monument), and due to its cultural and symbolic function, should not be treated as a generic man_made=* object. Its core characteristics are:

• Serves as a symbolic threshold, often marking a transition into a sacred or significant space
• Has a gate-like, non-architectural form (not a full building), often freestanding and open
• Lacks utilitarian function (not for dwelling, storage, or access control)
• Originates from cultural or religious contexts—even if constructed in modern times

Examples beyond East Asia include:

• India’s Torana
• Thailand’s Giant Swing
• Bali’s Candi Bentar
• Mesoamerican Gate of the Sun
• Yoruba sacred grove entrances
• Some interpretations of Lychgates in the UK

Structures like South Indian Gopuram, Islamic Bab, and European triumphal arches are not included due to their architectural, functional, or commemorative nature.

Tagging

• man_made=ceremonial_gate
• Recommended:
• ceremonial_gate=* — to specify local tradition or style:
  • ceremonial_gate=paifang (China)
  • ceremonial_gate=torii (Japan)
  • ceremonial_gate=hongsalmun (Korea)
  • ceremonial_gate=Iljumun (Korea)
  • ceremonial_gate=tam_quan (Vietnam)
• name=*
• religion=* (if applicable)
• material=* (e.g., stone, wood)
• heritage=* or heritage:operator=*

Rendering

Rendering suggestions may be considered by cartographic projects such as openstreetmap-carto, potentially with unique symbols for different ceremonial_gate=*.

See also

• Tag:historic=monument
• Tag:man_made=torii
• Tag:man_made=paifang
• Tag:man_made=hongsalmun
• Tag:man_made=iljumun

Discussion

Please use the talk page. (The preliminary discussions are taking place in the official community (here).)

• I approve this proposal. Seems like a reasonable and useful proposal. --Riiga (talk) 12:54, 14 August 2025 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Shu123 (talk) 14:59, 14 August 2025 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. This is a good proposal, This proposal will make OSM more advanced. --Taksine (talk) 13:22, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. The reasons are: 1. It is better to group map features with similar attributes into one. Since no one can know every map feature from every culture, simplification is preferable. 2. From the perspective of simplifying and systematizing each map feature in OSM, it is also better to merge them into one. OSM has too many similar yet separate map features, which makes tagging complicated and especially confuses beginners. --깨몽/dreamy (talk) 13:24, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --Netzwolf (talk) 13:32, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --Hahae (talk) 14:21, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --Mahajana (talk) 15:04, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --Rukkhadevata (talk) 16:31, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. It avoids separate top level tag for every single culture that has own ceremonial gates, it also makes easier to handle cases where some style of ceremonial gate is rare, and it would not get support from data consumers - we would not want mappers to be tempted to map ??? as man_made=torii because it is rendered and their gate type is not Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 17:36, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. Similar purposes, even shared origins for some of them, makes sense to unify these. --ManuelB701 (talk) 18:20, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --Phodgkin (talk) 20:11, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --Jofban (talk) 21:15, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --GuardedBear (talk) 23:09, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --mnalis (talk) 06:31, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --Yzuio (talk) 07:24, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

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• I approve this proposal. -- Something B (talk) 08:50, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. In my view they share the same origin and serve the same purpose. The change makes it easier to be used for researchers using OSM data. -- Obanazawa Kuri (talk) 12:28, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --Andrewth1 (talk) 17:53, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. -- ArcticRocinante (talk) 00:51, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. -- I am not at all familiar with these regional variants, but I don't see any obvious issues. HellMap (talk) 15:38, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. It's indeed better to group the different types into ceremonial_gate=* than having one top-level tag for each. --Ilias (talk) 23:28, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. — Computae (talk) 16:31, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --Mappin' Jack Flash (talk) 14:06, 19 August 2025 (UTC)