History
Zaō Station, on the Ōu Main Line in the city of Yamagata, opened on 1911-12-05 under the original name Kanai Station (金井駅). It was renamed Zaō Station on 1951-03-01, taking its name from the Zaō mountain range to the east. The station was absorbed into the JR East network upon the 1987 privatization of Japanese National Railways. It lies 81.8 rail kilometres from the line's southern terminus at Fukushima Station and has two opposed side platforms connected by a footbridge. The station remains staffed and recorded an average daily ridership of 1,105 boardings in fiscal 2018.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The station was originally named Kanai (金井) at its 1911 opening and did not take its current Zaō name — borrowed from the nearby mountain range — until 1951.