Kyoto Trivia
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100 free Kyoto trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Kyoto was Japan's capital for more than a thousand years and was spared the bombs of 1945 by a single American cabinet member. This quiz covers that arc: Emperor Kanmu's move from Nara in 794, the Chang'an grid, the Ōnin War, Hideyoshi's rebuilding, the last shogun's surrender at Nijō Castle, the 1869 move to Tokyo, the Lake Biwa Canal and the 1997 climate protocol. The temples and districts get their own questions: the gold leaf and 1950 arson at Kinkaku-ji, the 10,000 torii and fox messengers of Fushimi Inari, Kiyomizu's stage, Gion's geiko and its July festival, the nightingale floors, Ryōan-ji's fifteen stones, Arashiyama's bamboo and monkeys, Kyoto Tower and Hiroshi Hara's station. There is also Nintendo's origin in playing cards, kimono weaving, Kyoto University's Nobel laureates, the Daimonji fires, Kyoto Sanga and the machiya townhouses. Easy questions ask what covers the Golden Pavilion and which game company calls Kyoto home; hard ones want the Hamaguri rebellion's toll and the year the modern city was formed. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city and its sites, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Try our Japan and Tokyo quizzes next.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Kyoto became the seat of Japan's imperial court in which year, chosen by Emperor Kanmu?
794
Emperor Kanmu moved his court to the new capital in 794, laying it out on a Chinese-style grid; emperors resided there for nearly eleven centuries.
Q 02What was Kyoto's original name when Emperor Kanmu founded it?
Heian-kyō
Heian-kyō, the 'capital of peace and tranquility', gave its name to the Heian period; by its late centuries people simply called it Kyōto, 'capital city'.
Q 03Emperor Kanmu moved the capital to Kyoto partly to escape Buddhist clergy in which city?
Nara
The powerful Buddhist temples of Nara had meddled in court politics, so Kanmu left in 784 for Nagaoka-kyō and a decade later settled at the village of Uda in Yamashiro Province.
Q 04The imperial court left Kyoto for Tokyo in which year, at the time of the Meiji Restoration?
1869
Emperor Meiji settled in Tokyo in 1869, a year after Edo was renamed; the court's departure cost Kyoto much of its population and trade.
Q 05Which decade-long conflict of 1467-77 left Kyoto in ruins, with trenches dug through the streets?
The Ōnin War
The Ōnin War of 1467-77, a succession feud among the Ashikaga shogunate's great houses, turned Kyoto into a battlefield; much of the city burned and took decades to recover.
Q 06Which warlord rebuilt Kyoto in the late 16th century, ringing it with earthwork walls called odoi?
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, master of Japan by the 1580s, ringed Kyoto with the Odoi earthworks in 1591 and gathered its temples along Teramachi Street.
Q 07Which US Secretary of War insisted that Kyoto be struck from the list of atomic bomb targets in 1945?
Henry L. Stimson
Henry L. Stimson, who had visited Kyoto and admired it, overruled the Target Committee; Nagasaki took the city's place on the list, sparing its prewar buildings.
Q 08Kyoto's 20 km canal, completed in 1890, brought water and hydroelectric power from which body of water?
Lake Biwa
The Lake Biwa Canal, dug between 1885 and 1890, carried water from Japan's largest lake through the Higashiyama hills; its Keage plant was Japan's first commercial hydroelectric station.
Q 09Which tea master, perfecter of wabi-cha, was ordered to commit seppuku in Kyoto in 1591?
Sen no Rikyū
Sen no Rikyū, who shaped the austere wabi style of tea, lost his patron's favour and was ordered to kill himself at his Kyoto residence in 1591.
Q 10Roughly how many temples and shrines does Kyoto contain?
2,000
Kyoto holds roughly 2,000 religious sites, about 1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines, a legacy of its eleven centuries as the imperial capital.
Q 11Kinkaku-ji is famous for its pavilion whose top two floors are coated in what?
Gold leaf
Gold leaf covers the pavilion's second and third storeys, mirrored in the Kyōko-chi pond below; the temple's official name is Rokuon-ji, 'Deer Garden Temple'.
Q 12The Golden Pavilion seen today dates from 1955 because the original was destroyed how in 1950?
Arson by a novice monk
The pavilion burned in 1950 through arson by a novice monk, Hayashi Yōken, who then tried to kill himself on the hill behind; Yukio Mishima fictionalised the crime in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
Q 13Fushimi Inari-taisha is the head shrine of Inari, the kami of what?
Rice and agriculture
Q 21The Gion Festival originated in 869 as a ritual to appease the gods during what?
A plague
In 869 a plague swept the capital; 66 halberds, one per province, were raised at the Shinsen-en garden in a goryō-e rite to appease the spirits, and the festival grew from its repetitions.
Q 22The flatland castle in central Kyoto was ordered built in 1601 by which founder of a shogunate?
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered the castle in 1601 as his Kyoto residence, levying the daimyō of western Japan for the work; his grandson Iemitsu completed it in 1626.
Q 23The corridors of the Ninomaru Palace are famous for 'nightingale floors' that do what?
Chirp when walked on
Inari is the kami of rice and agriculture, later also of business prosperity; the shrine's torii gates are donated by companies and individuals seeking the deity's favour.
Q 14Roughly how many vermilion torii gates line the trails of Fushimi Inari-taisha?
10,000
Roughly 10,000 torii, each donated by a worshipper, line the 4 km of trails up Mount Inari; the shrine was founded in 711 by the immigrant Hata clan.
Q 15Which animals, regarded as Inari's messengers, are found as statues throughout Fushimi Inari-taisha?
Foxes
Stone foxes, often holding a key or a jewel in their mouths, guard the shrine as Inari's messengers; the trails climb 233-metre Mount Inari past many smaller shrines.
Q 16The Japanese phrase 'to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu' means roughly what?
To take the plunge
'Kiyomizu no butai kara tobioriru' means to take the plunge on a bold decision; Edo-era belief held that anyone surviving the 13-metre leap would have a wish granted.
Q 17Since 1995, Kiyomizu-dera has hosted which annual ceremony every 12 December?
The Kanji of the Year
The Kanji of the Year, chosen by public vote and organised by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, is brushed by Kiyomizu-dera's head priest on 12 December, Kanji Day.
Q 18Kyoto's geisha do not call themselves geisha; what local term do they use?
Geiko
Geiko, 'child of the arts', is the Kyoto term for a fully fledged geisha; the city's five hanamachi include Gion Kobu and Gion Higashi, separated in 1881.
Q 19The Gion district grew up as an entertainment quarter in front of which place of worship?
Yasaka Shrine
Yasaka Shrine was called Gion-sha until the Meiji era, and the town that grew before its gate to serve pilgrims became the Gion quarter; Gion renders the Buddhist name Jetavana.
Q 20The Gion Matsuri's float processions are held on which two July dates?
17 and 24
The Yamaboko Junkō parades on 17 and 24 July, the Saki and Ato Matsuri; the 24 July procession was revived in 2014, and on the yoiyama evenings before each, old houses display family heirlooms.
The uguisubari floors chirp when walked on because the nails rub against metal clamps beneath the boards, a sound said to warn of intruders.
Q 24At which Kyoto site did the last shogun announce the return of authority to the emperor in 1867?
Nijō-jō
Tokugawa Yoshinobu gathered his retainers in Nijō-jō's Ninomaru Palace in November 1867 to announce the Taisei Hōkan, ending some 265 years of Tokugawa rule.
Q 25Ryōan-ji's celebrated dry rock garden contains how many stones?
15
The 15 stones sit in five groups amid raked white gravel, arranged so that from any point on the veranda at least one is hidden from view.
Q 26What is the Japanese term for the 'dry landscape' style of Zen garden exemplified at Ryōan-ji?
Kare-sansui
Kare-sansui, literally 'dry mountain-water', uses rocks and raked gravel to suggest islands and sea without water; Ryōan-ji's name means 'Temple of the Dragon at Peace'.
Q 27The Arashiyama district on Kyoto's western edge is famous for a grove of what?
Bamboo
The Sagano bamboo grove's towering stalks line a path near Tenryū-ji, and the Togetsukyō bridge spans the river at the district's heart.
Q 28What does the name Arashiyama mean?
Storm Mountain
Arashi means storm and yama mountain, so Arashiyama is 'Storm Mountain', the peak across the Ōi River from the district; Tenryū-ji, head of a Rinzai Zen branch, stands nearby.
Q 29Which video game giant, founded in the 19th century, is headquartered in Kyoto?
Nintendo
Nintendo, started by Fusajiro Yamauchi in the Meiji era, moved into toys in the 1960s and released Donkey Kong in 1981 before the Famicom of 1983.
Q 30Founder Fusajiro Yamauchi originally made what product at the company that became a video game giant?
Hanafuda playing cards
Yamauchi began making hanafuda playing cards by hand in the Meiji era, later adding Western-style cards; the firm did not release a console until the Color TV-Game of 1977.