History
Arita Station opened on 10 July 1897 as an intermediate station on the private Kyushu Railway. On 7 August 1898 the Imari Railway opened a branch from Imari ending at Arita; it merged into Kyushu Railway later that year. The Kyushu Railway was nationalised on 1 July 1907, and on 1 December 1934 the route through Arita was redesignated the Sasebo Line, with the Imari branch becoming the Matsuura Line on 1 March 1945. After JNR's 1987 privatisation, the Matsuura Line was transferred on 1 April 1988 to the third-sector Matsuura Railway, making Arita a junction between the two operators. A new station building opened in June 1996, and the JR side was destaffed on 31 March 2026.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
The station building is fronted by a distinctive circular skylight, and the platform area hosts "Aritayaki Curry" — a curry served in an Arita-porcelain bowl that was voted top ekiben on a 2008 national broadcast and went on to win the Kyushu ekiben competition in 2010.