History
Kō Station (B04) is a JR Shikoku Tokushima Line stop in Kokufu-chō Fuchū, Tokushima, and is read 'Kō' rather than 'Fuchū', making it one of Japan's well-known difficult-to-read station names. It opened on 16 February 1899. The station was directly run until 1 February 1983 when operations were contracted to Nikkō Kan, became unstaffed on 1 February 1985, returned to direct operation on 1 March 1988, and was again unstaffed from 1 September 2010. With the JNR privatization on 1 April 1987 it passed to JR Shikoku. The original wooden station building from the line's opening was replaced by an aluminium-clad waiting-room-only structure in 2021; the formerly attached gender-shared pit toilet had been closed in 2019. The station has two opposed side platforms connected by a footbridge, with track 1 a 100 km/h one-track-through main line carrying through limited expresses and (absent meets) all stopping trains in both directions.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-24.
Notes
Although written with the same kanji as JR West's '府中' (Fuchū) Station in Hiroshima, this one in Tokushima is read 'Kō', and to keep the two apart, tickets here are printed with the prefix '(讃)' (for Sanuki/Shikoku) while the Hiroshima station's tickets are printed '(塩)' for Shiomachi.