History
Ao Station opened on 10 August 1913 with the Banshū Railway's section from Kunikane (now Yakujin) to Nishiwaki. A branch to Hōjōchō opened in 1915. The line passed to the Bantan Railway in 1923, was nationalised in 1943, and the Hōjōchō branch was spun off to the third-sector Hōjō Railway on 1 April 1985. Kobe Electric Railway's Ao Line reached the station on 10 April 1952, making it a three-operator junction. With JNR privatisation on 1 April 1987 the JR portion came under JR West, and the station took its current form when JR's new station building was opened in October 2009. JR portion staff were withdrawn in April 2022 when the station became unattended.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Ao is a three-letter Hepburn name; together with Ei, Ii, and Oe, it shares the distinction of having the shortest romanised station name in Japan.