is the collective nickname for the Chūō Line of the

Osaka Metro The is a major rapid transit system in the Osaka Metropolitan Area of Japan, operated by the Osaka Metro Company, Ltd. It serves the city of Osaka and the adjacent municipalities of Higashiosaka, Kadoma, Moriguchi, Sakai, Suita, and Yao. O ...

and the

Keihanna Line The is a railway line operated by Kintetsu Railway. There are through trains to the Chūō Line of Osaka Municipal Subway. The line name derives from a kanji acronym formed from , , and , but the name is written in hiragana. The line is the s ...

of the

Kintetsu Railway , referred to as , is a Japanese passenger railway company, managing infrastructure and operating passenger train service. Its railway system is the largest in Japan, excluding Japan Railways Group. The railway network connects Osaka, Nara, Kyot ...

Osaka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Osaka Prefecture has a population of 8,778,035 () and has a geographic area of . Osaka Prefecture borders Hyōgo Prefecture to the northwest, Kyoto Prefecture ...

and

Nara Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,321,805 and has a geographic area of . Nara Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Osaka Prefecture to the northwest, Wakayama P ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The two lines operate through trains between

Cosmosquare Station is a metro station on the Osaka Metro Chūō Line and Nankō Port Town Line (New Tram) in Suminoe-ku, Osaka, Japan. This station serves as the starting terminus of both lines. This station, which services the Cosmosquare Complex, is the west ...

, the western terminus of the Chūō Line in Suminoe-ku,

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 2. ...

, and

Gakken Nara-Tomigaoka Station is a train station serving as the terminus of the Kintetsu Keihanna Line in Nara, Nara Prefecture, Japan. Line *Kintetsu Keihanna Line (Station Number: C30) Layout The station has an island platform An island platform (also center platf ...

, the eastern terminus of the Keihanna Line in

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...

History

The name and a logotype was published on October 26, 2005 as a result of public contest. The use of the name started on March 27, 2006 when the Kintetsu Higashi-Osaka Line was extended to Gakken Nara-Tomigaoka Station and renamed the Keihanna Line.

Etymology

The term "Yumehanna" can be broken into "Yume" and "Hanna"; "Yume" means dream in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Wiktionary entry for "yume" and "Hanna" (阪奈) is a

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

abbreviation for Osaka (大阪) and Nara (奈良). The committee for the name selection explained the reason for the victory of the name as follows: "It successfully expresses the hope for the future of the connection of the Science City and the

Osaka Bay Osaka Bay (大阪湾 ''Ōsaka-wan'' ) is a bay in western Japan. As an eastern part of the Seto Inland Sea, it is separated from the Pacific Ocean by the Kii Channel and from the neighbor western part of the Inland Sea by the Akashi Strait. ...

Area. Also, the use of

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

creates the soft nuance of the word and a friendly image."

References

{{Reflist Osaka Metro Lines of Kintetsu Railway