History
Iiyama Station opened on 1921-10-20 as the terminus of the privately-owned Iiyama Railway after the line was completed from Toyono. Nationalisation on 1944-06-01 folded the company into the JNR Iiyama Line; the station passed to the new Japanese National Railways in 1949 and to JR East at privatisation on 1987-04-01. A relocated station building entered service on 2014-11-09, roughly 300 metres south of the original site, in preparation for Shinkansen service. The Hokuriku Shinkansen extension from Nagano to Kanazawa opened on 2015-03-14, making Iiyama a Shinkansen stop, with 12 of the 15 daily Hakutaka services calling at the station.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The Shinkansen platforms use the folk song "Furusato" -- whose lyrics were written by Tatsuyuki Takano, born in nearby Nakano City -- as their departure melody, with platform 11 playing the first half and platform 12 the second.