History
Chitose opened on 21 or 22 August 1926 as a general station on the Hokkaido Railway Sapporo Line. Military sidings were laid to the naval air bases in August 1941, and on 1 October 1943 wartime nationalisation brought the line under the Ministry of Railways as part of the Chitose Line. After two fires in 1948 and 1953 the station building was rebuilt, with a third building completed on 10 April 1954. The section through Chitose was double-tracked between 1965 and 1968, and elevation work began on the urban section in August 1976; the fourth (elevated) station building opened on 1 October 1980. With the privatisation of JNR on 1 April 1987 the station passed to JR Hokkaido. Kitaca service began on 25 October 2008.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Chitose's elevated station — opened in 1980 — was built to Shinkansen specifications as a trial for the then-under-construction Tōhoku and Jōetsu Shinkansen stations, with the platforms on the third floor, concourse on the second, and station offices on the first. Adjacent New Chitose Airport is reached by transferring to airport access trains at the next station, Minami-Chitose.