The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters are in Yoyogi, Shibuya,

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, and next to the Shinjuku Station. It is listed in the

Tokyo Stock Exchange The , abbreviated as Tosho () or TSE/TYO, is a stock exchange located in Tokyo, Japan. It is the third largest stock exchange in the world by aggregate market capitalization of its listed companies, and the largest in Asia. It had 2,292 listed ...

(it formerly had secondary listings in the

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most p ...

and

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

stock exchanges), is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, and is also one of the three only Japan Railways Group constituents of the Nikkei 225 index, the other being JR Central and JR West. Yamanote-Line-E235

History

JR East was incorporated on 1 April 1987 after being spun off from the government-run Japanese National Railways (JNR). The spin-off was nominally "privatization", as the company was actually a wholly owned subsidiary of the government-owned JNR Settlement Corporation for several years, and was not completely sold to the public until 2002. Following the breakup, JR East ran the operations on former JNR lines in the Greater Tokyo Area, the

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (''ken''): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku ret ...

, and surrounding areas.

Lines

Railway lines of JR East primarily serve the Kanto and Tohoku regions, along with adjacent areas in

Kōshin'etsu region is a subregion of the Chūbu region in Japan consisting of Yamanashi, Nagano, and Niigata prefectures. The name Kōshin'etsu is a composite formed from the names of old provinces which are adjacent to each other — Kai (now Yamanashi), ...

( Niigata, Nagano, Yamanashi) and Shizuoka prefectures.

Shinkansen

JR East operates all of the Shinkansen, high-speed rail lines, north of Tokyo, except the

Hokkaido Shinkansen The is a Japanese high-speed Shinkansen rail line that links up with the Tōhoku Shinkansen in northern Aomori Prefecture in Honshu and continues on into the interior of Hokkaido through the undersea Seikan Tunnel. Construction started in M ...

, which is operated by JR Hokkaido. *

Tōhoku Shinkansen The is a Japanese high-speed Shinkansen rail line, connecting Tokyo with Aomori in Aomori Prefecture in a route length of , making it Japan's longest Shinkansen line. It runs through the more sparsely populated Tōhoku region of Japan's main ...

(Tokyo - Shin-Aomori) * Jōetsu Shinkansen (Tokyo - Niigata; Echigo-Yuzawa - Gala Yuzawa) * Hokuriku Shinkansen (Tokyo - Jōetsumyōkō) * Yamagata Shinkansen (Tokyo - Shinjo) * Akita Shinkansen (Tokyo - Akita) The Tokyo–Osaka Tōkaidō Shinkansen is owned and operated by the Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central), although it stops at several JR East stations.

Kanto regional lines

These lines have sections inside the Tokyo suburban area ( ja, 東京近郊区間, links=no) designated by JR East. This does not necessarily mean that the lines are fully inside the Greater Tokyo Area.

Koshinetsu regional lines

Tohoku regional lines

Train services

Below is the full list of

limited express A limited express is a type of express train service. It refers to an express service that stops at a limited number of stops in comparison to other express services on the same or similar routes. Japan The term "limited express" is a commo ...

(including Shinkansen) and

express train An express train is a type of passenger train that makes a small number of stops between its origin and destination stations, usually major destinations, allowing faster service than local trains that stop at most or all of the stations along ...

services operated on JR East lines as of 2022.

Shinkansen

*'' Asama'' *'' Hakutaka'' *''

Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. ''Hayabusa'', formerly known as MUSES-C ...

'' *'' Hayate'' *'' Kagayaki'' *'' Komachi'' *'' Nasuno'' *'' Tanigawa/Max Tanigawa'' *'' Toki/Max Toki'' *''

Tsubasa Tsubasa (written: 翼, 翔, 飛翔 or つばさ in hiragana) is a unisex Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *Tsubasa (wrestler), Japanese professional wrestler *, Japanese footballer *, Japanese baseball player *, Japanese ...

'' *''

Yamabiko The is a high-speed Shinkansen train service operated on the Tōhoku Shinkansen between and by East Japan Railway Company (JR East) in Japan. Name The word ''yamabiko'' is usually translated as 'echo', particularly one which is heard in t ...

Limited express (daytime)

*'' Akagi/Swallow Akagi'' *'' Azusa'' *'' Fuji Excursion'' *''

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

'' and '' Tokiwa'' *''

Inaho The is a limited express train service in Japan operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East), which runs from to and .JR Timetable, March 2012 issue, p.101/1003 The train runs along the Uetsu Main Line with views on the coast and Dewa R ...

'' *'' Kaiji/View Kaiji/Hamakaiji'' *'' Kusatsu'' *'' Narita Express'' *'' Nikkō and Kinugawa'' *'' Saphir Odoriko/Odoriko'' *'' Sazanami'' * ''Shirayuki'' *'' Shiosai'' * ''Shōnan'' *'' Tsugaru'' *'' Wakashio''

Limited express (overnight)

*'' Sunrise Izumo''/'' Sunrise Seto'' (not operated by JR East, operated by JR Central and JR-West over the Tokaido Main Line, part of which JR East owns between Tokyo and Atami)

Stations

During fiscal 2017, the busiest stations in the JR East network by average daily passenger count were: # Shinjuku Station (778,618) # Ikebukuro Station (566,516) # Tokyo Station (452,549) # Yokohama Station (420,192) # Shinagawa Station (378,566) # Shibuya Station (370,669) # Shimbashi Station (277,404) # Omiya Station (255,147) # Akihabara Station (250,251) #

Kita-Senju Station is a railway station in Adachi, Tokyo, Japan. Kita-Senju is the third-busiest station on the Tokyo Metro network, after Ikebukuro and Otemachi. It is the tenth-busiest JR East station. Lines Kita-Senju Station is served by the following lines. ...

(217,838)

Subsidiaries

*Higashi-Nihon Kiosk - provides newspapers, drinks and other items in station kiosks and operates the Newdays convenience store chain *JR Bus Kanto / JR Bus Tohoku - intercity bus operators *Nippon Restaurant Enterprise - provides '' bentō'' box lunches on trains and in train stations * Tokyo Monorail - (70% ownership stake) *East Japan Marketing & Communications

Sponsorship

JR East co-sponsors the JEF United Chiba J-League football club , which was formed by a merger between the JR East and Furukawa Electric company teams.

Environmental issues

JR East aims to reduce its

carbon emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and l ...

by half, as measured over the period 1990–2030. This would be achieved by increasing the efficiency of trains and company-owned

thermal power station A thermal power station is a type of power station in which heat energy is converted to electrical energy. In a steam-generating cycle heat is used to boil water in a large pressure vessel to produce high-pressure steam, which drives a st ...

s and by developing