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Biggest Cities in Japan

How many of Japan's 20 most populous cities can you name?
2018 estimates
Population figures are for the city proper, not the metro area
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: March 23, 2021
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First submittedSeptember 19, 2011
Times taken65,813
Average score40.0%
Rating4.72
4:00
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Keep scrolling down for answers and more stats ...
Population
City
9,555,919
Tokyo
3,740,172
Yokohama
2,725,006
Osaka
2,320,361
Nagoya
1,966,416
Sapporo
1,579,450
Fukuoka
1,527,407
Kobe
Population
City
1,516,483
Kawasaki
1,468,980
Kyoto
1,295,607
Saitama
1,199,252
Hiroshima
1,088,669
Sendai
977,247
Chiba
945,595
Kitakyushu
Population
City
831,017
Sakai
800,582
Niigata
794,025
Hamamatsu
739,556
Kumamoto
723,012
Sagamihara
721,329
Okayama
+24
Level 47
Sep 19, 2011
I got 7. Not good, but more than four. Take that, Quizmaster. ;)
+7
Level 28
Aug 15, 2019
Got 18, forgot Kyoto I feel like an idiot
+2
Level 66
Apr 21, 2020
I got 19. Missed Sagamihara
+1
Level 26
Jan 18, 2021
I got 9. More than4!
+8
Level 29
Sep 19, 2011
5 is good enough for never having been there.
+4
Level 66
Jul 9, 2016
Agree completely
+7
Level 28
Sep 19, 2011
More than half...but I lived there a while.
+1
Level 65
Apr 5, 2015
13/20, never been there
+1
Level 21
May 9, 2015
same here, probably even same ones:)
+2
Level 63
Sep 20, 2011
8...never lived there, just good with geography.
+4
Level 68
Apr 4, 2021
Yes, 8.
+1
Level 24
Dec 7, 2011
Only missed Sagamihara... and I've never even been. I think I might just have wasted my life.
+2
Level 8
Oct 1, 2012
i only got tokyo and kyoto, the two obvious ones!
+6
Level 22
Dec 29, 2012
20/20... wow. I'm not even Japanese! I just love Japanese culture. (:
+1
Level 38
Jul 9, 2016
i took a month to learn about the japanese culture as well aka pretty much 99% of it was geography and cities and provinces lma
+1
Level 47
Aug 6, 2019
Same!!!
+2
Level 42
Feb 25, 2013
All I got was Tokyo and Hiroshima.....
+8
Level 82
Apr 29, 2013
You don't have to have visited Japan to get more than 4 of these. Tokyo of course everyone knows it's the biggest city in the world. Yokohama is also huge, there's a good chance you've heard that name before. Anyone at all familiar with history would get Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima. Nintendo fans might also get Kyoto. Nagoya is also a big city and fairly well known. Sapporo famous for its beer. Kawasaki famous for its motorcycles. Kobe famous for its steak. Sendai used to have a company that published video game magazines. Shizuoka also sounds familiar to me but I'm not sure why. The only two that traveling to Japan helped me get were Chiba and Fukuoka... Chiba because it's a suburb of Tokyo where flight attendants hang out and I went there with one... and Fukuoka because it's the biggest city on the coast near the ROK and I took a ferry from there to Busan.
+20
Level 37
Aug 7, 2014
In this context Tokyo is not the biggest city in the world. Yokohama, Chiba, Saitama and Kawasaki are all included in that metro area. As for Osaka, I would say I'm "at all familiar with history" yet I've never heard Osaka in any historical context. I know it from geography though. Kal, for all your brilliance you seem to be entirely unaware that your experience is yours alone, your retention of knowledge is yours alone. And your assertions that folks "should know" something are careless at best, verging on caustic. Hope you got to Busan in the summertime and enjoyed the beach. Cheers!
+1
Level 60
May 12, 2023
I took it more as "this is plausible because these cities are relevant in these aspects".
+4
Level 88
Sep 12, 2019
Fukuoka and Fukushima are famous for their 1st 3 letters in school.

Didn't you learn anything, Kal?

+2
Level 20
Mar 5, 2021
And don't forget the Sapporo Olympics! 1972, and they're a candidate for 2030
+3
Level 78
Apr 2, 2021
But he said "you don't have to have visited Japan to get more than 5 of these", which means you feasibly can get more, not that you should get more. Regarding Osaka's historical significance, it was both an important port and an industrial center for a long time and I think I've read somewhere that it was considered Japan's gate to the world. However, I think it's more famous simply because it's the second largest (depending on the method) and probably the second most important city. Movie fans may also know it as the setting of Black Rain and an inspiration for Blade Runner.
+2
Level 55
Apr 2, 2021
You can also get more than 4 if you're a weeb :)
+7
Level 32
May 6, 2013
I got perfect, because I am Japanese :)

It is very difficult for also Japanese to answer Sagamibara.

Sagamibara is located Kanagawa prefecture, but Kanagawa has 2 big cities, Yokohama and Kawasaki...so we are always blocking the name of this third biggest city!

+4
Level 32
Jun 4, 2013
oh, misspelled. Sagamihara...
+2
Level 63
Apr 8, 2023
Rendaku is hard, it's okay
+10
Level 84
Sep 2, 2014
Pretty sweet username, right there.
+2
Level 51
Nov 1, 2017
Bet it helps...
+1
Level 77
May 7, 2014
I got 6/20 while the average is 7. Still I got more right than over half the people... :)
+4
Level 67
May 14, 2014
Kobe, my favourite NBA player.
+2
Level 66
Dec 9, 2014
LOL
+1
Level 78
Jun 30, 2015
XD
+4
Level 65
Jul 24, 2020
rip
+1
Level 46
May 25, 2021
rip
+1
Level 32
Aug 25, 2014
9/20
+1
Level 36
Aug 30, 2014
I've been to Japan only once and I got all twenty. Apparently, I listen in school more than I thought I did.
+3
Level 86
Aug 30, 2014
4 ? There are 7 easy ones : Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kyoto, Kobe (because of the earthquake) and Hiroshima (because of...). The other ones are indeed challeging.
+1
Level 21
May 9, 2015
Sendai too
+1
Level 63
May 11, 2016
yes, that was an easy one for me because it was the epicenter (offshore) of the Fukushima earthquake/tsunami/nuclear-disaster.
+1
Level 68
Apr 4, 2021
Yes, these were the 8 I got - but I forgot about Kobe, and got Yokohama.
+1
Level 47
May 21, 2016
I don't think all 7 of those are easy.
+1
Level 28
Aug 31, 2014
I got 11. Should've got 12 though. Forgot Nagoya :/
+1
Level 84
Aug 31, 2014
One thing that helped me was the 2002 World Cup. 8 out of the 10 Japanese host cities are in the quiz, including 4 of the "obscure" ones.
+1
Level 30
Sep 6, 2014
I got 9 !
+1
Level 48
Jan 5, 2015
Watch how you pronounce the one city- Fukuoka!
+3
Level 82
Jul 9, 2016
pretty much as you would expect.
+1
Level 53
Feb 6, 2015
How do you get hit with an atomic bomb and seventy years later continue to be a major city and eleventh overall in Japan?
+5
Level 56
Feb 2, 2016
Because Japan is an incredible country!
+1
Level 75
Jul 9, 2016
Not disagreeing that Japan is incredible, but using your logic why isn't Nagasaki on the list, then?
+6
Level 56
Apr 4, 2017
Well, Hiroshima was already larger than Nagasaki at the time of the bombing. I in no way stated that the atomic bomb is what made the city stronger. They're not radroaches.
+4
Level ∞
Mar 23, 2021
Because people tend to vastly overestimate the power of the nuclear weapons which were dropped over Japan. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks were not even the deadliest air raids of the war. That would be the March 10 bombing of Tokyo which killed 100,000 and made 1 million homeless.

That said, Hiroshima is much different today than it was in 1945. The central area of the city was destroyed by the bomb and is now a park.

+1
Level 69
May 26, 2015
The population count is totally wrong, most websites suggest that f.e. Tokyo has over 32 million inhabitants.
+6
Level ∞
May 27, 2015
City proper vs metro area
+1
Level 49
Jul 5, 2015
14, not bad
+1
Level 70
Apr 8, 2016
I got 15!
+5
Level 31
May 9, 2016
Wow. I'm still an embryo and got 21. I'm so good at geography woohoo!
+4
Level 89
Jul 9, 2016
I haven't even been conceived yet and I managed to get all 55.
+1
Level 28
Jul 9, 2016
I got 8.
+1
Level 78
Nov 29, 2016
managed to get 17 with the comments :D
+1
Level 78
Nov 29, 2016
8 on my own though
+2
Level 68
Apr 4, 2021
Just why
+2
Level 77
May 29, 2017
+1
Level 26
Jun 11, 2018
Never been to Japan but I have studied, read (fiction and non-fiction), and watched dramas, movies, documentaries to do pretty well. I did not get three in my last attempt.
+1
Level 93
Jan 23, 2019
been to all, yet still missed one...
+2
Level 55
Aug 22, 2019
I didn't get Kumamoto but I definitely won't forget it next time! It literally translates to "hot (insert preferred word for lady bits)" in Swahili.
+1
Level 38
Sep 15, 2019
no nagasaki
+1
Level 38
Sep 15, 2019
I almost forgot a very easy one Niigata
+4
Level 55
Nov 16, 2020
100% get Tokyo but only 99% get Earth on the planets quiz. Humans are weird!
+1
Level 58
Apr 2, 2021
I scored 18 which I'm happy with because the two I didn't get, I've never heard of. Despite having lived in Japan for over a year and visited Japan every year for 20 years, somehow the existence of Hamamatsu and Sagamihara completely escaped my attention.
+1
Level 55
Apr 3, 2021
I got 4
+1
Level 35
Apr 13, 2021
im really dumb.. i didnt even get kyoto or sapporo. i literally only got tokyo and osaka. also i watch anime but ive never heard of yokohama.
+1
Level 24
Aug 8, 2021
I got 13. I wonder how I missed Sendai haha. rest of them were clueless
+1
Level 53
Apr 11, 2022
Tokyo has a lot more base population than about 10 million. Not including urban population its around 30 million something
+1
Level 53
Apr 21, 2022
Yeh I played this quiz again the normal population of tokyo is still in 30 millions for metro its 30 million and urban its nearly 40 million
+2
Level 45
Dec 3, 2022
I GOT ALL OF THEM LEZZ GOOO
+1
Level 27
Nov 12, 2023
If this quiz had 21 entries, 20 of them excluding Tokyo would comprise the entirety of designated cities (政令指定都市).

Shizuoka missed the mark, with a population of just under 700k.

+1
Level 41
Mar 3, 2024
Why is Tokyos pop so low