History
Katano Station (05) is on the Kitakyushu Monorail (Kitakyushu Urban Transit Kokura Line) in Katano 3-chōme, Kokura-Kita-ku, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture. The station opened on 9 January 1985 with the rest of the Kokura Line, and the mono SUGOCA IC card became accepted on 1 October 2015. Kokura-Kita-ku is one of the seven administrative wards of Kitakyushu — a designated city formed on 10 February 1963 by the equal merger of Moji, Kokura, Wakamatsu, Yahata, and Tobata, which became a designated city on 1 April 1963 (the first non-three-major-metropolitan-area, non-prefectural-capital, non-Honshū city to do so). According to the ward's Wikipedia article, Kokura-Kita serves as the political, economic, and transportation hub of Kitakyushu, with Kokura Station, Kokura Castle, and the city hall all located within the ward. Bus connections at the stop are operated almost entirely by Nishitetsu Bus Kitakyushu.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-25.
Notes
The Kitakyushu Monorail's Kokura Line — Katano sits at station 05 — was a long-delayed project of the city; the ward article notes that the West Japan Railway (Nishitetsu) Kitakyushu streetcar lines that had once served roughly the same north–south corridor were all abolished within the ward by 25 October 1992.