History
Taniyama stop opened on 1 December 1912 (Taishō 1) under the Kagoshima Electric Tramway, originally sited along National Route 225 (the old site is still visible). On 1 July 1928 (Shōwa 3) it was transferred from the Kagoshima Electric Tramway to the Kagoshima City Tram Electrical Bureau (today the Kagoshima City Transportation Bureau). The stop was relocated roughly 30 m toward Kamishioya in 1979 (Shōwa 54) as part of a land readjustment, and its renewal was completed at the end of March 1996 (Heisei 8) with the new stop entering service that month; the completion ceremony was held on 2 April 1996. It is the terminus of Route 1 of the Kagoshima City Tram. Uniquely among tram stops of the city — other than Kagoshima-eki-mae, which is the line's other terminus — it has a station building. A pillar marking it as "the southernmost tram stop in Japan" was installed on 1 July 2012 (Heisei 24) as part of the 100th-anniversary commemorations of the tram system.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Taniyama is the southernmost tram stop in Japan, designated as such by a marker installed for the tram system's centenary. The complementary records are listed alongside it on Wikipedia: Nishi-Yon-chōme is the northernmost (in Sapporo), Susukino the easternmost, and Akasako (in Nagasaki) the westernmost. The terminus has three head-end platforms and two tracks. Because it sometimes accepts a third train when two are already standing, an emergency alighting-only platform 50 m to the north along National Route 225 — disconnected from the main platforms and exiting only to the road — is used for that purpose; a single crossover on the Wakida side of this alighting platform allows direct turnback when needed. Although JR Kyūshū Ibusuki-Makurazaki Line's Taniyama Station is only 500 m away as the crow flies (600 m on foot), the proposed 540-m tram extension to it was once abandoned in 2006 over traffic concerns before being revived in connection with the Taniyama–Jigenji elevated-rail project; the city is also examining a pedestrian/cyclist conversion of the soon-to-be-redundant Nagata River bridge to link the two.