History
Imari Station opened on 7 August 1898 as the northern terminus of the private Imari Railway's track from Arita, then was absorbed into the Kyushu Railway on 28 December 1899. The Kyushu Railway was nationalised on 1 July 1907, and Japanese Government Railways extended the route west to Kusuku in 1930. On 1 March 1935 the station became a junction when the private Kitakyushu Railway built east from Yamamoto and made Imari its western terminus — that line was itself nationalised in 1937 as the Chikuhi Line. The Matsuura Line was named in 1945. At JNR privatisation on 1 April 1987 the station passed to JR Kyushu, and on 1 April 1988 the Matsuura Line was divested to the third-sector Matsuura Railway as the Nishi-Kyūshū Line. On 1 March 2002 the JR and Matsuura tracks were severed and the station split into an eastern JR building and a western Matsuura building, connected by an overhead pedestrian bridge above the dividing road.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Where the English and Japanese sources differ, this account follows the Japanese source.
Notes
Although the JR and Matsuura halves of Imari Station stand on opposite sides of a public road, the white-walled, chimney-topped 2002 station buildings share a single Imari-ware ceramic motif, and a pedestrian deck with a lift overhead links the two operators above the traffic.