History
Kō Station (B04) is a JR Shikoku Tokushima Line stop in Kokufu-chō Fuchū, Tokushima, and is read 'Kō' rather than 'Fuchū' — making it one of Japan's well-known difficult-to-read station names. It opened on 16 February 1899. The station was directly run until 1 February 1983 when operations were contracted to Nikkō Kan, became unstaffed on 1 February 1985, returned to direct operation on 1 March 1988, and was again unstaffed from 1 September 2010. With the JNR privatization on 1 April 1987 it passed to JR Shikoku. The original wooden station building from the line's opening was replaced by an aluminium-clad waiting-room-only structure in 2021; the formerly attached gender-shared pit toilet had been closed in 2019. The station has two opposed side platforms connected by a footbridge, with track 1 a 100 km/h one-track-through main line carrying through limited expresses and (absent meets) all stopping trains in both directions.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-24.
Notes
Although written with the same kanji as JR West's '府中' (Fuchū) Station in Hiroshima, this one in Tokushima is read 'Kō' — and to keep the two apart, tickets here are printed with the prefix '(讃)' (for Sanuki/Shikoku) while the Hiroshima station's tickets are printed '(塩)' for Shiomachi.