every station, 1872 to today

Eki · 駅

On a June morning in 1872, Japan’s entire railway was a single line between Shimbashi and Yokohama. A century and a half later the map carries more than nine thousand stations. Press play and watch the country fill in — one opening at a time.

Source & method

Stations, coordinates and opening dates come from Wikidata (CC0): every item that is a railway station in Japan with coordinates and a date of official opening, taking the earliest opening year per station. A station blooms at its opening year and is never removed, so closed and relocated stations remain on the map. Of the source set, 96 stations were left off for a missing or unusable opening date, or coordinates outside Japan. The coastline is a simplified Natural Earth outline.

Download the data (CSV, 9,321 stations).

Words for the rails

You just watched 150 years of stations appear. These are the words you’d use to ride them today — from the 駅 you start at to the 乗り換え in the middle.

駅えきstation電車でんしゃtrain路線ろせんline / route乗り換えのりかえtransfer切符きっぷticket新幹線しんかんせんbullet train開業かいぎょうopening (of a line)

Learn the vocabulary of the rails →

You just watched Japan’s rail map grow for 150 years — and the kanji riding on it are closer than they look:

駅えきstation電車でんしゃtrain路線ろせんline新幹線しんかんせんbullet train

JIVX turns a fascination like this into real Japanese: short daily sessions of whole sentences, graded the way a teacher would — not flashcards. Free to start, at your own level.

Start practising free →