History
Ichitana Station opened on 1 July 1923 as the northern terminus of the Miyazaki Main Line, which Japanese Government Railways had been extending north from Miyazaki after nationalising the former Miyazaki Prefectural Railway in 1917. JGR's Hōshū Line, building south from Kokura down the east coast of Kyushu, reached its own terminus at Shigeoka in March 1922, just 9 km north of Ichitana. The two were linked on 15 December 1923 and the through Kokura–Miyakonojō route was redesignated the Nippō Main Line. Freight and baggage handling ended in 1972, the station became unstaffed, and at privatisation on 1 April 1987 it passed to JR Kyushu. It sits 238.5 km from Kokura in Nobeoka — Miyazaki's easternmost and northernmost station.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Ichitana marks the prefectural boundary between Ōita and Miyazaki — and between two of JR Kyushu's regional branches — making the short hop to neighbouring Sōtarō notorious among 18-Kippu travellers as the 'Sōtarō crossing,' a difficult section with only a few trains a day.