1977: The Debut of a Japanese Railway Station that Owes Its Name to an 8th Century Monarch

August 20, 1977

In the Keihanshin metropolitan region of Japan’s island of Honshu, a passenger railway station in the city of Sakai in Osaka Prefecture first went into service. This station was named after Kōmyōike (Kōmyō Pond), an artificial lake in the area. That lake, in turn, had been named in memory of Empress Kōmyō (701-760) of Japan’s Nara period. She was the wife of Emperor Shōmu (701-756), who reigned from 724 to 749.

Kōmyōike Station consists of an elevated island platform that has a building beneath it. This facility is part of the Semboku Rapid Railway Line, which encompasses six stations altogether and covers a total of 8.9 miles (14.3 kilometers) in Osaka Prefecture.

Photo Credit: Nankou Oranain (as 36 . . .) – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

For more information on the Keihanshin metropolitan region’s transportation network, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Keihanshin