Hakata-eki-minami, Fukuoka — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Hakata-eki-minami?

Hakata station is the landmark this district was named for. It stands immediately north, and the northern end of Hakata-eki-minami has become part of the office core of western Japan that has grown around it. The Hie site lies in the district.

It is the archaeological ground recorded here, on land that was paddy before the railway reorganisation. A hundred hectares make up the whole. The district runs as a long narrow strip from the south side of the station down to Takeshita, which is why the north and the south look so unalike.

What is the history of Hakata-eki-minami?

The first Hakata station opened in 1889. It stood beside the old town, near what is now the Dekimachi park, and the Kagoshima main line curved sharply south after entering it. Two platforms were not enough.

The station could not handle its passengers and freight before the Second World War, and the crowding grew worse in the recovery, so moving it looked like the only answer. A new line was cut across the paddies. It shortened the sharp curve behind the old station, and an elevated station with many platforms was built in the middle of it.

New streets followed the tracks. Land readjustment turned the paddies around the new station into a district, which is where Hakata-eki-mae to the west and Hakata-eki-higashi and Hakata-eki-minami to the east all come from. The names were fixed in 1969.

The address reform of that year gave the district the six chome it now has.

Where is Hakata-eki-minami?

Hakata-eki-minami runs south from the Chikushi-dori behind Hakata station over about a hundred hectares, bordering Hakata-eki-higashi and Hie to the north-east, Takeshita to the south and Minoshima and Hakata-eki-mae across the Kagoshima main line to the west.