The closest mainland American city to Tokyo is Los Angeles at just under 9000 kilometres away but USA is actually much closer to Tokyo than you may think! In fact it is ten times closer to the Japanese capital city than L.A. but how is that so?

Japan’s most southern main island of Kyushu lies around 950 kilometres south-west of Tokyo with the closest prefecture being Oita in the north-east. It possesses a town with the most American of names. This is no American-style themed park though and neither is it anything like Johnson Town in Saitama!

Ever since hearing about USA station in Oita Prefecture I have wanted to see it for myself and my short trip to Kyushu back in June gave me the chance. My original plan was to travel up to this station from Kitsuki on the day I arrived at Oita Airport. As a Tokyo resident used to very regular trains, I was aware that there might only be one every hour or two in this part of Japan. I was wrong! They were even less regular than that, particularly in the afternoons. It just was not possible to go to USA and return to Oita in time for the football match I had a ticket for that evening.

Knowing I had to take the 8:20 am train west to Saga Prefecture the next morning I took a look at the schedule planner to see if it was possible to do it before that but really didn’t think there was any chance of that happening. However, the stars (and stripes!) aligned to help me but it would mean a very early start!

If I took the 5:30 am train from Oita I would then have about 30 minutes at USA station before taking the train back just after 7:00 am which would give me about ten minutes to get my reserved train to Tosu. Perfect in terms of giving me enough time to see what I wanted to see but not so good for my sleep!

The sun hadn’t been up for too long before I arrived at USA at 6:30 am. I was the only one to disembark, and pretty much had the whole station to myself for the entirety of my stay. Standby for lots of signage pictures!

Sadly, USA town is actually pronounced “Oo-sah” rather than “You-Es-Eh” but for the sake of the tenuous link to the country I’ll contine to spell it as USA rather than Usa in this post!

Thankfully Japan’s attitude towards signs in English is often one of seemingly little care and attention so things like spelling and the use of upper and lower case letters isn’t always considered too important! Consequently, the spelling of this town looks the same as the abbreviation of the United States of America. They have certainly taken advantage of the connection, and it has occasionally been featured as a quirky news item on TV variety shows.

The station building itself has a rural Japanese feel to it but I guess I was hoping for something a bit more tacky like seeing USA written in big letters in English somewhere and a garish red, white and blue colour scheme. Sadly, USA was only written in kanji characters though with a bit of red in the main building.

Oita Prefectural Museum of History and Usa Jingu Shrine are the main attractions in the area, and indeed the latter features on some of the station’s signs in a style which is a subtle nod to the American flag.

Although the shrine was open at this early time of the day it was sadly not conveniently located for a quick visit from me as it’s located four kilometres west of the station.

It should be pointed out that not all the station signs are American themed for there are a few more simpler ones.

Little did I know it at the time of my visit but subsequent research has revealed that some of the area around USA station supposedly bears something of a resemblance to the Incan ruins of Peru.

After half an hour in USA it was time for my American journey to end and I headed back to Japan!! Given that I haven’t left the shores of Japan for five years now, this is perhaps as close as I’ll get to being in a foreign land for now!

Click here to read ‘Tokyo Daytripper: Johnson Town – A Taste of America In Saitama’

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