History
Kii-Nakanoshima Station opened on 1 January 1932 as Nakanoshima Station on the Hanwa Electric Railway, and was renamed Hanwa-Nakanoshima on 15 January 1932. A separate Kii-Nakanoshima Station was then opened on the Wakayama Line on 1 January 1935, and the Hanwa-Electric stop shifted 102 metres south to meet it; on 25 September 1936 the Hanwa station was abolished and its operations folded into Kii-Nakanoshima. The Hanwa Electric Railway was absorbed by Nankai in 1940 and nationalised in 1944 as the Hanwa Line. A route change on 1 October 1974 closed the old Wakayama-Line stretch through the station, leaving only the Hanwa Line. JR West took over on 1 April 1987, and station number JR-R53 was assigned in 2018.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Where the English and Japanese sources differ, this account follows the Japanese source.
Notes
In 2008 the iron supporting the platform roof, originally laid down by the Hanwa Electric Railway, was found to consist of rails rolled at the Yawata Steel Works in its very first years of operation; the structure was designated a recommended industrial heritage by the Industrial Archaeology Society of Japan in 2009.