Marunouchi Line — Tokyo subway
A red U through central Tokyo from Ogikubo to Ikebukuro, with its own three-station branch down to Honancho.
The Marunouchi Line at a glance
The Marunouchi Line is 30.6 km long and shaped like a U: it starts at Ogikubo in Suginami, runs east through Shinjuku to the Marunouchi offices around Tokyo Station, then doubles back north to Ikebukuro in Toshima. A branch leaves the main line at Nakano-sakaue for Honancho, and its stations are numbered Mb rather than M.
It was the second line built in the city and the first after the Second World War, and its design follows the Ginza Line closely: standard gauge, third rail, no through services onto anyone else’s tracks. The name comes from the Marunouchi district, adopted in 1953, and before the subway a Tokyo tram of the same name had run above ground between Tokyo and Otemachi since 1921.
What to watch out for on the Marunouchi Line
Every station on the Marunouchi Line
28 stations in order with their station numbers. A ringed dot marks a station where you can transfer; the small coloured dots are the other lines there.
Ogikubo ↔ Ikebukuro
25 stations
Honancho branch: Honancho ↔ Nakano-sakaue
4 stations on the branch
Service hours on the Marunouchi Line
| Timetable | First – last departure on the line |
|---|---|
| Weekdays | 05:00 – 00:28 |
| Saturdays, Sundays & holidays | 05:00 – 00:28 |
Departure times come from the operators’ own GTFS timetables (ODPT GTFS Toei-Train-GTFS (version 20261009, valid 2026-03-14..2027-03-12) + TokyoMetro-Train-GTFS (version 20261008, valid 2026-09-19..2027-03-12)). Japan publishes two subway timetables: 平日 weekdays and 土休日 Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays. There is no separate Sunday timetable, and the December 30 – January 3 period runs the holiday timetable. Each station page gives its own first and last train by direction.
How often trains run
| Timetable | Morning peak (08:00) | Midday (12:00) | Evening (21:00) | Measured at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weekdays | 2.2 min | 4 min | 4 min | Akasaka-mitsuke |
| Saturdays, Sundays & holidays | 5 min | 4 min | 5 min | Akasaka-mitsuke |
Average gap between trains in one direction at the busiest station of the line.
Where you can transfer
| Station | Other lines | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| M06 Nakano-sakaue | EOedo | Toei Subway |
| M08 Shinjuku | SShinjuku EOedo | Toei Subway |
| M09 Shinjuku-sanchome | FFukutoshin SShinjuku | Toei Subway Tokyo Metro |
| M12 Yotsuya | NNamboku | Tokyo Metro |
| M13 Akasaka-mitsuke | GGinza | Tokyo Metro |
| M14 Kokkai-gijidomae | CChiyoda | Tokyo Metro |
| M15 Kasumigaseki | HHibiya CChiyoda | Tokyo Metro |
| M16 Ginza | GGinza HHibiya | Tokyo Metro |
| M18 Otemachi | TTozai CChiyoda ZHanzomon IMita | Toei Subway Tokyo Metro |
| M21 Hongo-sanchome | EOedo | Toei Subway |
| M22 Korakuen | NNamboku | Tokyo Metro |
| M25 Ikebukuro | YYurakucho FFukutoshin | Tokyo Metro |
A transfer to a line of the other company is a change of railway as well as of platform: your fare is the sum of the two, less the connecting discount. See fares.
Transfers on foot to a differently named station
| From | To | Lines there | On foot (estimated) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shinjuku | Shinjuku-nishiguchi | Oedo Line | about 3 min |
| Akasaka-mitsuke | Nagatacho | Yurakucho Line, Hanzomon Line, and Namboku Line | about 4 min |
| Kokkai-gijidomae | Tameike-sanno | Ginza Line and Namboku Line | about 3 min |
| Ginza | Ginza-itchome | Yurakucho Line | about 5 min |
| Awajicho | Shin-ochanomizu | Chiyoda Line | about 5 min |
| Awajicho | Ogawamachi | Shinjuku Line | about 2 min |
| Korakuen | Kasuga | Mita Line and Oedo Line | about 2 min |
These are official transfers recorded by the operators between stations with different names. The walking time is our estimate from the distance between the platforms — no operator publishes transfer walking times.
History
A Line 4 between Shinjuku and Otsuka appears in the five-line plan the Ministry of Home Affairs issued in 1925 after the Great Kanto Earthquake. Tokyo City took a licence for it the same year but could not get construction approved, and in 1932 handed the licence to the Tokyo Rapid Railway; in 1941 everything passed to the Teito Rapid Transit Authority. Wartime planning treated the Shinjuku–Tokyo stretch as an emergency route, and a groundbreaking was held by the Benkei moat on 5 June 1942, but work stopped in June 1944 for want of money, materials and labour.
The postwar line was redrawn on 7 December 1946 and construction restarted at Ikebukuro on 30 March 1951. The first section, Ikebukuro to Ochanomizu, opened on 20 January 1954, and the rest followed piece by piece: Awajicho in March 1956, Tokyo in July 1956, Nishi-Ginza in December 1957, Kasumigaseki in October 1958, Shinjuku in March 1959, Nakano-fujimicho in February 1961, Minami-asagaya that November, Ogikubo on 23 January 1962 and Honancho on 23 March 1962. Nishi-Ginza became part of Ginza in August 1964, Higashi-koenji was added in September 1964 and Nishi-shinjuku in May 1996. The line was one of those attacked with sarin on 20 March 1995. On 7 December 2024 it became the first subway line in Japan to run on communications-based train control.
Trains and service
There are two timetables, 平日 for weekdays and 土休日 for Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays, and no night service on either: first trains leave about 05:00 and the last about 00:28. Measured at Akasaka-mitsuke, weekday trains run about every two minutes in the morning peak and every four at midday and in the evening; on Saturdays and holidays the peak gap is nearer five minutes. The Honancho branch is worked mostly by short trains shuttling to Nakano-sakaue, with some six-car services; after the platform doors at Honancho were lengthened, through trains from Ikebukuro began running the whole way from fiscal 2017. No Marunouchi Line train leaves the subway.
Rolling stock
The main line and the branch are worked by Tokyo Metro 2000 series six-car trains, which entered service on 23 February 2019 and replaced the 02 series that had run since 1988; the three-car 02 series sets used on the branch lasted until September 2022. Trains are based at Koishikawa and Nakano depots. The line’s original 500 series stock, withdrawn in 1996, was sold abroad and went on working on Line B of the Buenos Aires Underground.
Frequently asked questions
A three-station spur from Nakano-sakaue to Honancho, by way of Nakano-shimbashi and Nakano-fujimicho, opened on 23 March 1962. It is usually worked as a self-contained shuttle with short trains, though some services run through to and from Ikebukuro. Its stations carry the prefix Mb rather than M.
It marks the Honancho branch. Branch stations were originally numbered with a lowercase m, which was replaced by Mb in November 2016 because the small letter was easy to misread. Main-line stations run M01 to M25 from Ogikubo to Ikebukuro.
Because it was built shallow. At several points in central Tokyo the tracks reach or pass above ground level: at Yotsuya, where the line crosses the old castle moat, at the Kanda River near Ochanomizu, and on the stretch between Korakuen and Myogadani.