'Hankyu Electric Railway'), is a Japanese private railway company that provides commuter and interurban service to the northern Kansai region and is one of the flagship properties of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc., in turn part of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group (which includes H2O Retailing Corporation and Toho Co., the creator of Godzilla).

[1] The Hankyu network serves 1,950,000 people every weekday and offers several types of express service with no extra charge.

The head offices of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc. and Hankyu Corporation are at 1-16-1, Shibata, Kita-ku, Osaka; both companies' registered headquarters are at Ikeda Station, 1-1, Sakaemachi, Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture.

Keihanshin (京阪神) refers to the area served by Hankyu trains, comprising the cities of Kyoto (京都), Osaka (大阪) and Kobe (神戸), along with the suburbs that connect them to each other.

In 1907, the Minoo Arima Electric Tramway Company (箕面有馬電気軌道株式会社, Minoo Arima Denki Kidō Kabushiki-gaisha), a forerunner of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc., was established by Ichizō Kobayashi (precisely, he was one of the "promoters" of the tramway).

The Hankyu Braves (named in 1947) played until the 1988 season and became the predecessors of the present-day Orix Buffaloes.

The railway business was ceded to a subsidiary, now named Hankyu Corporation (before the restructuring, the new company which reused a dormant company founded on December 7, 1989, was called "Act Systems" (株式会社アクトシステムズ) until March 28, 2004, then "Hankyū Dentetsu Bunkatsu Junbi K.K."

[2] Hankyu operates three main trunk lines, connecting Osaka with Kobe, Takarazuka and Kyoto respectively, and their branches.

[3] Standard cars have three pairs of doors per side and bench seating facing the center of the train (exceptions are noted below).

[4] A 2-car Hankyu train was featured in the 1988 Japanese animated war drama Grave of the Fireflies.