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50 free Tokyo trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Tokyo is a city that keeps rebuilding itself: it burned in 1657, fell in the 1923 earthquake, was firebombed flat in 1945 and each time came back bigger. This quiz walks through that story, from Ota Dokan's castle and Tokugawa Ieyasu's shogunate to the day Edo became the 'Eastern Capital', the arrival of Commodore Perry, the Meiji-era railways and the postwar economic miracle that made the Tokyo Stock Exchange briefly bigger than New York's. Then it tours the modern city: the 23 special wards and the islands 1,850 km away that are still technically Tokyo, Skytree's carefully chosen height, Tokyo Tower's borrowed silhouette, Shibuya Crossing and the loyal dog Hachiko, Shinjuku Station's 3.59 million daily passengers, the Yamanote loop, Senso-ji, Meiji Shrine, Toyosu fish market, Akihabara and Harajuku, and Michelin's verdict on the food. Sport and screen get their turn with the 1964 and 2020 Olympics, the Yomiuri Giants' Big Egg, Godzilla and Lost in Translation. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Tokyo and its landmarks, districts and events, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Try our Japan quiz for the rest of the country.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Tokyo called before 1868?
Edo
Edo, meaning 'estuary', was the city's name until 1868, when Emperor Meiji moved his court there from Kyoto and renamed it Tokyo.
Q 02The name Tokyo literally means what?
Eastern Capital
It follows the East Asian habit of putting the character for 'capital' in a capital's name, as in Kyoto, Beijing and Nanjing.
Q 03Which shogun made Edo the seat of his government in 1603?
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokugawa Ieyasu, named shogun in 1603, governed from Edo while the emperor stayed in Kyoto as nominal ruler; his dynasty held power there until 1868.
Q 04Who fortified Edo with a castle in 1457, on the site of today's Imperial Palace?
Ota Dokan
Ota Dokan built Edo Castle in 1457 and was assassinated in 1486; the fortress passed to the Uesugi and then the Hojo before Tokugawa Ieyasu took it after the 1590 siege of Odawara.
Q 05Which American commodore's 1853 arrival ended Japan's seclusion and set Edo on the road to Tokyo?
Matthew C. Perry
Commodore Matthew C. Perry's 'black ships' anchored off Uraga in July 1853; the 1854 Convention of Kanagawa then opened Shimoda and Hakodate to American vessels.
Q 06The Great Fire of Meireki in 1657 killed an estimated how many people in Edo?
100,000
The Meireki fire of 1657 killed an estimated 100,000 people and burned most of Edo, including the castle keep; the shogunate created its first standing fire brigades the next year.
Q 07On what date did the Great Kanto Earthquake strike?
1 September 1923
The Great Kanto Earthquake struck at 11:58 am on 1 September 1923, as lunch fires were burning; quake and firestorm killed roughly 105,000 people across Tokyo, Yokohama and the surrounding region.
Q 08The 1923 earthquake wiped out what share of Japan's economic output?
37 percent
Damage from the 1923 earthquake was estimated at about 37 percent of Japan's GDP; the collapse of brick and timber buildings pushed Tokyo toward reinforced-concrete, earthquake-resistant construction.
Q 09Which Tokyo subway line, opened in 1927, was the first in Asia?
Ginza Line
The Ginza Line's first stretch, Ueno to Asakusa, opened on 30 December 1927 as Asia's first subway; Tokyo's second line, the Marunouchi, did not follow until 1954.
Q 10In 1943 the city merged with its surrounding prefecture to form what?
The Tokyo Metropolis
Tokyo City and Tokyo Prefecture were abolished on 1 July 1943 and merged into the Tokyo Metropolis (Tokyo-to), which is why Tokyo has a governor and assembly rather than a city mayor.
Q 11The US firebombing of 9-10 March 1945, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, is described as what?
The deadliest bombing in history
Operation Meetinghouse is called the deadliest bombing raid in history: about 16 square miles of Tokyo burned and some 100,000 civilians died in one night, more than in the Dresden or Hamburg firestorms.
Q 12How many special wards make up central Tokyo?
23
Central Tokyo is made up of 23 special wards, consolidated from 35 in 1947; each calls itself a 'city' in English but works more like a London borough.
Q 13Which special ward holds the National Diet Building and the Imperial Palace?
Chiyoda
Q 21Up to how many people can cross Shibuya Crossing during a single green light?
3,000
As many as 3,000 people cross Shibuya Crossing on a single green light, which is why it is called the world's busiest pedestrian crossing; the scramble halts traffic in every direction at once.
Q 22Shinjuku Station, the world's busiest, handled how many passengers a day in 2018?
3.59 million
Guinness certifies Shinjuku as the world's busiest station at an average 3.59 million passengers a day in 2018; the complex has more than 200 exits.
Q 23The Yamanote Line, which loops around central Tokyo, has how many stations?
30
The Yamanote Line has 30 stations since Takanawa Gateway opened in 2020; the 34.5 km loop takes about an hour, and only Mejiro and Shin-Okubo lack a connecting line.
Chiyoda ward contains the Imperial Palace, the National Diet Building and the Kasumigaseki ministries; the metropolitan government sits in Shinjuku instead.
Q 14Tokyo's most distant island, Minami Torishima, lies how far from the city centre?
1,850 km
Minami Torishima lies about 1,850 km southeast of central Tokyo yet belongs to Ogasawara village; it is Japan's easternmost point, and Okinotorishima, also Tokyo, is the southernmost.
Q 15What is the highest mountain within Tokyo's boundaries?
Mount Kumotori
Mount Kumotori, 2,017 m, on the border of Tokyo, Saitama and Yamanashi, is Tokyo's highest point; Mount Fuji, about 100 km southwest, lies in Shizuoka and Yamanashi.
Q 16Tokyo's latitude of about 35.65 degrees north puts it further south than which of these cities?
Rome
Tokyo lies south of Rome (41.90), New York (40.71) and Beijing (39.91), which surprises people who picture it as a northern city.
Q 17The Greater Tokyo Area had how many residents as of 2025?
33 million
The UN's 2025 estimate put the Tokyo agglomeration at about 33 million people, third in the world behind Jakarta and Dhaka; Tokyo Metropolis itself holds about 14 million.
Q 18Tokyo Skytree stands 634 metres tall; why that number?
It spells 'Musashi', an old name for the region
In Japanese numeric wordplay 6 is mu, 3 is sa and 4 is shi; the height was raised from a planned 610 m to claim the record.
Q 19Tokyo Skytree was completed on which unusual date in 2012?
29 February
Construction of Tokyo Skytree finished on 29 February 2012, a leap day; the tower opened to the public on 22 May 2012 as the world's tallest tower at 634 m.
Q 20Tokyo Tower, completed in 1958, was modelled on which Paris landmark?
The Eiffel
Tokyo Tower copied the Eiffel Tower's lattice form; at 333 m it stood 9 m taller than the Paris original yet weighed about 3,300 tons less, and it is repainted every five years.
Q 24The first Shinkansen line opened in 1964 between Tokyo and which city?
Osaka
The Tokaido Shinkansen linked Tokyo and Shin-Osaka on 1 October 1964, nine days before the Olympics opened, covering the 552.6 km route in four hours.
Q 25Tokyo Station opened in which year?
1914
Tokyo Station opened on 20 December 1914; its red-brick Marunouchi facade, designed by Tatsuno Kingo, faces the Imperial Palace while the Yaesu side faces the other way.
Q 26Senso-ji, Tokyo's oldest temple, is dedicated to which figure?
Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion
Legend says two fisherman brothers pulled a statue of Kannon from the Sumida River in 628.
Q 27Meiji Shrine, dedicated in 1920, honours Emperor Meiji and whom?
Empress Shoken
Meiji Shrine enshrines Emperor Meiji and his consort Empress Shoken, who died in 1914; it sits in a 70-hectare forest in Shibuya ward grown from about 100,000 donated trees.
Q 28Which airport in Ota ward handles most of Tokyo's domestic flights?
Haneda
Haneda Airport, on Tokyo Bay in Ota ward, opened in 1931 and handles most domestic flights; Narita, which opened in 1978, lies about 60 km away in Chiba Prefecture.
Q 29The 1964 Tokyo Olympics were the first Games staged where?
In Asia
Tokyo 1964 was the first Olympics held in Asia; the Games were also the first telecast live overseas by satellite and the first from which apartheid South Africa was excluded.
Q 30Why were the 1964 Olympics held in October rather than summer?
To avoid heat, humidity and typhoons
The 2020 Games ignored the lesson and were held in the July-August heat, then postponed by a pandemic.