Matsuyama (Ehime)

History

Matsuyama Station (Y55 / U00) is a JR Shikoku Yosan Line station in Minami-Edo 1-chōme, Matsuyama, Ehime. It opened on 3 April 1927 as a Ministry of Railways station when the Sanyō Line was extended from Iyo-Hōjō; since Iyo Railway already had a Matsuyama Station from 1888, the Railway Ministry pressured Iyo Railway into renaming theirs Matsuyama-shi Station and ceded the new state-rail terminus its name. The line was extended to Minami-Gunchū (today Iyoshi) on 27 February 1930 and the whole Takamatsu–Matsuyama–Minami-Gunchū corridor was renamed the Yosan Line on 1 April 1930. The original station building was destroyed by air raid on 26 July 1945 and a wooden temporary building opened in April 1946; the reinforced concrete third-generation building dated from 28 September 1953. The Yosan Line section through Matsuyama was electrified at 1500 V DC on 21 November 1990. Elevated-station construction started in January 2018 and the elevated station opened on 29 September 2024, although service was delayed from spring 2024 to autumn 2024 after JR Shikoku announced in January 2023 that the viaduct had a design error.

History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-24.

Notes

Although Matsuyama is the prefectural capital, the JR station has always played second fiddle to Iyo Railway's Matsuyama-shi Station for local traffic — JR Matsuyama sits some distance from the city centre and ended up positioned as the long-distance terminal, and it is the last of the prefectural-capital-representing JR stations to have opened (the 46th). On 13 October 2013 it signed a friendship-station agreement with Songshan Station in Taipei, whose name uses the same kanji.