Shinjuku Station

Opened in 1885, Shinjuku Station is served by five operators across 36 platforms and holds Guinness World Records certification as the world's busiest railway terminal. The Shinjuku Grand Terminal plan — anchored by a 48-storey tower and an east–west pedestrian deck — is under construction with the tower due in fiscal 2029.

The World’s Busiest Terminal

Shinjuku Station opened on 1 March 1885 as an intermediate stop on the Nippon Railway’s Akabane–Shinagawa line, the predecessor of today’s JR Yamanote Line. Daily boardings numbered around 50 passengers on its first day. The Kobu Railway (predecessor of the Chuo Line) joined in 1889, and Keio’s forerunner extended its tracks here in 1915, establishing Shinjuku as a convergence point for lines radiating from central Tokyo. Today the station spans the border of Shinjuku and Shibuya wards, served by five operators — JR East, Odakyu Electric Railway, Keio Electric Railway, Tokyo Metro, and Toei (the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation) — across 36 platforms and 69 direct exits.

Guinness World Records first certified Shinjuku as the world’s busiest railway station in 1991 and re-certified it in 2011 at approximately 3.64 million passengers per day across all operators. Even after the disruption of the pandemic years, JR East alone recorded approximately 667,000 boardings a day in fiscal 2024, and the combined all-operator ridership continues at a scale unmatched by any other station in the world.

The East–West Divide and the Shinjuku Grand Terminal Plan

Despite its scale, Shinjuku Station has long carried a structural problem: its JR tracks running north–south through the centre effectively divide the east side — the entertainment district around Kabukichō — from the west, home to the high-rise office towers of Nishi-Shinjuku. For decades, passengers travelling between the two sides had to navigate underground passages or in-station concourses, and the absence of any outdoor east–west walkway above the JR tracks left the neighbourhood strangely compartmentalised for a district of its size.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Shinjuku Grand Terminal plan addresses this head-on. At its core is a 48-storey tower of approximately 260 metres on the west side, being developed jointly by Odakyu, Tokyo Metro, and Tokyu Fudosan on the site of the former Odakyu department store, with completion targeted for fiscal 2029. Alongside it, an elevated east–west pedestrian deck spanning the JR tracks is planned — when finished, it will provide the first outdoor walking connection between east and west Shinjuku. Full completion of the surrounding land readjustment project is targeted for fiscal 2046, a timeline that marks this as one of the longest-running urban transformations in contemporary Tokyo.

Summary

Shinjuku Station, opened in 1885 and now served by five operators across 36 platforms, holds Guinness World Records recognition as the world’s busiest railway terminal by daily ridership. The Shinjuku Grand Terminal project — a 260-metre tower and an east–west pedestrian deck due in fiscal 2029, with full build-out by 2046 — will gradually close the long-standing structural gap between east and west. Standing at the west exit and looking out at the construction hoardings and cranes is its own kind of Tokyo experience right now: a glimpse of a neighbourhood still actively becoming itself.

Related: Tokyo Metropolitan Government No. 1 / Shinjuku Sumitomo Building / Cocoon Tower (Mode Gakuen)

Visiting Shinjuku? Rakuten Travel lists hotels in the area.