History
Mareppu Station opened on 20 August 1925 as a station on the Japanese Government Railways Naganawa-tō Line (the present-day Muroran Main Line), located in Date, Hokkaidō, on JR Hokkaido as station H36. Date sits on the southwest coast of Hokkaidō and belongs to the Iburi Subprefecture (specifically the Nishi-Iburi area). Unlike most place-names in Hokkaidō, the city name does not come from Ainu — it commemorates the Watari-Date clan (a branch of the Sendai-Date) who migrated from Miyagi Prefecture and settled here in the early Meiji era. The shoreline faces Uchiura Bay (also called Funka Bay), and the entire municipality is included in the Tōya-Caldera–Usu-Volcano UNESCO Global Geopark. In a March 2005 merger Date absorbed the former Ōtaki Village, producing an unusual exclaved territory whose two halves are separated by Sōbetsu Town.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-25.
Notes
The Date article lists Mt. Mareppu (稀府岳, 702.1 m) among the city's main mountains — the same name as this station, which sits on the coastal plain below it.