History
Hakodate Station first opened on 10 December 1902 as a Hokkaido Railway terminal; a second station, the present site, opened on 1 July 1904. The line was nationalised on 1 July 1907 and renamed the Hakodate Main Line in 1909. From 7 March 1908 the station served as the Hokkaido terminus of the Seikan ferry, which ran until the Seikan Tunnel opened in 1988. A 1913 fire and several wartime rebuilds reshaped the depot, and the present fifth-generation building opened in 2003. With the Hokkaido Shinkansen's debut on 26 March 2016, long-distance sleeper trains (Cassiopeia, Hokutosei, Hamanasu) ceased, but the Hokuto limited express to Sapporo continues to terminate here.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
On 26 September 1954 the ferry Tōya-maru capsized just outside Hakodate Station's harbour during Typhoon No. 15, in the disaster known as the Tōya-maru jiko.