History
Minami Kōen Station opened on 5 February 1981 with the inauguration of Kobe New Transit's Port Island Line (Port Liner). It was closed by the Great Hanshin earthquake on 17 January 1995 and was among the first stops to reopen on 22 May. The single side platform takes only Sannomiya-bound traffic, since the line runs as a one-way loop here. Track-switching for the 2006 Kobe Airport extension required two overnight suspensions in November 2004 and September 2005. A 2008 IKEA Kobe naming-rights deal, extended to include the prefectural children's hospital in 2016, gives the stop the subtitle "IKEA / Kodomo Byōin-mae."
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Notes
The platform serves trains only in the Sannomiya direction — the Port Liner loops one-way through here, so reaching destinations like Shimin Hiroba or Kobe Airport from this stop requires backtracking and changing at Naka-kōen.