History
Wakayama Station opened on 28 February 1924 as Higashi-Wakayama Station when the JNR Kisei West Line was extended from the original Wakayama Station (now Kiwa) to Minoshima. The same day the Santō Light Railway, predecessor of the Wakayama Electric Railway Kishigawa Line, extended its tracks here, making the new station a junction from the outset. In 1930 the Hanwa Electric Railway opened a line from Izumi-Fuchū, and after a wartime nationalisation in 1944 the surrounding network was consolidated under Japanese National Railways. The station was renamed Wakayama on 1 March 1968 — a month after the previous holder of the name became Kiwa — and a department-store building opened that 31 March. JR West took over at the 1987 privatisation.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Track number 6 no longer exists: the original number-6 line between platforms 5 and 7 was removed, but the renumbering only happened on the rails — the adjacent platforms are still announced as 7 and 8.