History
Before the JGR Yamaguchi Line opened, the area was served from 1908 to 1913 by a Dai-Nippon Kidō Yamaguchi Branch light railway between Ogōri and a station at this site. The present Yamaguchi Station opened on 20 February 1913 as the terminus of the JGR Yamaguchi Line; the line was extended to Shinome on 1 July 1917, making it a through station. To avoid a name clash, the existing Yamaguchi Station in Saga Prefecture was renamed Hizen-Yamaguchi at the same time (and renamed again to Kōhoku in 2022). An address change on 1 May 1968 placed the station in Sōdayū-chō. The current station building opened on 10 April 1978, and a Midori-no-Madoguchi staffed ticket counter began operating on 1 April 1974. Freight ceased on 1 January 1984 and parcel handling on 1 April 1986. The station passed to JR West at privatisation on 1 April 1987. The Midori-no-Madoguchi closed on 30 November 2021 and was replaced by a Midori Plus ticket machine the next day. The station lost its dedicated stationmaster in June 2022 and came under Shin-Yamaguchi's stationmaster. From 1 April 2023 the ICOCA contactless card became valid for tickets between this station and Yuda-Onsen and Shin-Yamaguchi.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Yamaguchi is the JR station representative of Yamaguchi Prefecture's capital, but it is the least-used prefectural-capital representative station on the JR network, and it is the only such station on a regional (Local) line. The cross-prefecture transport function effectively sits at Shin-Yamaguchi instead, where the Sanyō Shinkansen, Sanyō Main Line and Ube Line meet.