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田主丸駅（河童駅舎） · Site · Kurume (Tanushimaru), Fukuoka

Tanushimaru Station, the Kappa Station

A country station built in the shape of a kappa's head, in a town on the Chikugo river that has made the river child its own.

Quick Facts

Type
Site
Prefecture
Fukuoka · Kurume (Tanushimaru)
Nearest station
Tanushimaru Station (JR Kyūdai Main Line)
From the station
The station is the place itself; the town's kappa statues are within a few minutes' walk
English signage
some
Opening hours and admission
See the official site (external link) · information checked on 2026-11-03

Hours, admission and closing days change, and this site does not list them. The link goes to the place's own page, with the date we last checked it.

What is there

The station at Tanushimaru, on the line between Kurume and Yufuin, was rebuilt in 1992 as a kappa: the roof is its head, the windows its eyes, and a dish of water sits on top. The town behind it has kappa on its bridges, its signposts and its shop fronts, dozens of them in stone and bronze, and a hall beside the station keeps the town’s history and its kappa lore. The surrounding country is the fruit-growing plain of the Chikugo river, and the river is why the kappa are here.

Why here

The Chikugo is the kappa river of Kyushu. The tale says the kappa clans of Kumamoto, driven out by the lord of the castle, crossed into this valley under their chief and settled along the river, and the villages on its banks have told of them ever since: the kappa that pulls a horse, the kappa that fills its dish before leaving the water. The records of the article come from the same river system, a little upstream.

Yokai you will meet

  • Kappa 河童 — The station built as a kappa, in the town on the Chikugo river where the kappa clans of the tale settled.

Getting there

Tanushimaru Station (JR Kyūdai Main Line). The station is the place itself; the town's kappa statues are within a few minutes' walk.

Sources and further reading

  1. Reliable secondary Tanushimaru Station (external link) Fukuoka Prefecture Tourism Federation (Crossroad Fukuoka) Visitor page for the kappa-shaped station and the hall beside it.
  2. Reliable secondary Tanushimaru Station (English) (external link) Fukuoka Prefecture Tourism Federation (Crossroad Fukuoka) English version of the page.
  3. Database Tanushimaru Station (田主丸駅) (external link) Wikipedia (Japanese) The 1992 station building in the shape of a kappa and the town's kappa tradition on the Chikugo river.

Other places with these yokai

Other places in Fukuoka

  • Kurume Suitengū 久留米水天宮（全国総本宮） Shrine or temple Kurume, Fukuoka — The head shrine of the water gods of Japan, on the bank of the Chikugo river, where the kappa of the river are said to have taken service.