History
Kumamoto Station is the principal rail gateway to Kumamoto Prefecture, served by the Kyushu Shinkansen and the Kagoshima and Hōhi Main Lines. It opened on 1 July 1891 as the southern terminus of the Kyushu Railway's extension from Tamana, in what was then Kasuga Village. The Miyagi Light Rail Line (today's Hōhi Main Line) joined on 21 June 1914. Following 1907 nationalisation and the 1987 JNR privatisation, JR Kyushu and JR Freight took over. The Kyushu Shinkansen began stopping here on 12 March 2011; the conventional lines were elevated in stages from 2015 to 2018, and the Tadao Andō-designed Shirakawa-side station building opened on 16 March 2019, followed by the JR Kumamoto City retail complex on 23 April 2021.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
The 2019 Shirakawa-side entrance, designed by architect Tadao Andō, takes its silhouette from the steeply battered "musha-gaeshi" stone walls of Kumamoto Castle.