Akihabara Local Quiz Practice: Questions and Explanations

Correct answerPop culture

Akihabara is known worldwide as Japan's leading electric town and, at the same time, as a globally famous sacred site of pop culture such as anime, manga, and games. What began as a postwar cluster of stalls selling radio parts and electronic components gradually gave way, from the 1990s onward, to hobby shops, figure stores, and maid cafes, turning the district into a pilgrimage site for overseas fans making the trip specifically for its otaku culture.

Source:Akihabara Electric Town (Spot Guide)

Correct answerIt's packed with shops selling home electronics and electronic parts

Akihabara is known for its dense concentration of shops selling home electronics and electronic parts, which is why it's called an 'Electric Town.' The district traces its roots to postwar black-market stalls selling radio parts, which official intervention eventually pushed together beneath the elevated railway tracks — the seed from which today's cluster of parts shops and big-box electronics retailers eventually grew.

Source:Akihabara Electric Town (Spot Guide)

Correct answerAkiba

Akihabara is widely known by the nickname 'Akiba,' a shorthand used constantly in both Japanese and international media. The clipped nickname took hold alongside the electric town's growing fame, and it eventually became so recognizable that TV shows, magazines, and even overseas travel guides use 'Akiba' on its own, with no further explanation needed.

Source:Chapter 8: From an Otaku Culture Shrine to the World's Akiba

Correct answerTsukuba Express

The Tsukuba Express begins its route at Akihabara Station. Opened in 2005, this comparatively young line connects central Tokyo to Tsukuba City in Ibaraki Prefecture in as little as 45 minutes, departing from a platform built deep underground at Akihabara. The line is operated by Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company, a third-sector company jointly funded by local governments along its route.

Source:Akihabara Station

Correct answerChiyoda

Akihabara is in Chiyoda City, Tokyo, as shown by JR Akihabara Station's official address. Chiyoda is also the political and administrative heart of Japan, home to the Imperial Palace, the National Diet, and central government ministries — making the coexistence of a bustling electronics district and a quiet government quarter within the same ward one of the area's distinctive contrasts.

Source:Station Information (Akihabara Station)

Correct answerChuo-dori

Chuo-dori is the well-known main street running through Akihabara's Electric Town. On Sundays and holidays it becomes a pedestrian paradise, its roadway filling with shoppers and tourists instead of cars. Heading south, the same Chuo-dori continues on toward Nihonbashi and Ginza, making it one of central Tokyo's principal north-south streets dating back to the Edo period.

Source:Pedestrian Paradise

Correct answerTrue

Akihabara Radio Kaikan is a commercial building right outside JR Akihabara Station's Electric Town Gate, home to shops selling electronic parts and audio equipment as well as hobby-goods stores like figure shops — one of Akihabara's landmark buildings. Structural concerns after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake forced it to close temporarily, and a three-year rebuild brought it back as the current building in 2014.

Source:Akihabara Radio Kaikan (Spot Introduction)Akihabara Radio Kaikan - Wikipedia

Correct answerTrue

Akihabara Station brings together lines from several different railway operators, making it one of central Tokyo's major terminal stations. Three companies — JR East, Tokyo Metro, and Metropolitan Intercity Railway (the Tsukuba Express) — converge here across a total of five lines, and the resulting flow of transferring passengers helps push the station's average daily ridership into the hundreds of thousands.

Source:Akihabara Station

Correct answerJapan's Three Great Festivals

Kanda Matsuri, hosted by Kanda Myojin, is considered one of 'Japan's Three Great Festivals,' alongside Kyoto's Gion Matsuri and Osaka's Tenjin Matsuri. During the Edo period it was also honored as a 'tenka matsuri,' a festival whose procession was permitted inside Edo Castle itself, reportedly viewed by members of the Tokugawa shogun's own family.

Source:Japan's Three Great Festivals: Kyoto's Gion Matsuri, Osaka's Tenjin Matsuri, and Tokyo's Kanda MatsuriAbout the Kanda Matsuri | Kanda Matsuri Special Site

Correct answerKanda Myojin

Kanda Myojin is about a 7-minute walk from Akihabara Station's Electric Town Gate, and it's a shrine many Akihabara visitors stop by. Alongside modern touches like its 'IT Information Safety Protection' amulet, the shrine is said to date back to 730 CE (Tempyo 2), so centuries of history and up-to-the-moment tech-district culture sit side by side on the same grounds.

Source:Kanda Shrine (Kanda Myojin) (Spot Guide)What Is Kanda Myojin? | Edo's Guardian Shrine, Kanda Myojin

Correct answerAbout 570 m

Akihabara's pedestrian paradise covers a roughly 570-meter stretch of Chuo-dori. Electronics shops and anime-related stores line the closed-off section, and on Sunday and holiday afternoons the roadway fills wall to wall with pedestrians, making it one of the district's most emblematic scenes of everyday bustle.

Source:Pedestrian Paradise – Akihabara Electrical Town Organization

Correct answerAKB48

Akihabara Station (Hibiya Line) uses a departure melody arranged from AKB48's "Koisuru Fortune Cookie" — the first time a Hibiya Line station adopted a departure melody. The choice nods to the fact that AKB48's own theater is located in Akihabara, turning the station itself into a small piece of the district's pop-culture identity.

Source:Akihabara Station - Wikipedia

Correct answerKanda Ward

Chiyoda Ward was formed in March 1947 by merging Kojimachi Ward and Kanda Ward. Akihabara falls within the former Kanda Ward. The merger was part of a postwar reorganization that consolidated Tokyo's 35 wards down to 22 (later 23), folding Kanda's craftsman-town character together with Kojimachi's government-office district into a single administrative ward.

Source:Origins of the Ward - Chiyoda City

Correct answerAbout 11.66 km²

Chiyoda Ward covers about 11.66 km², making it one of the smaller of Tokyo's 23 wards. Because the Imperial Palace, several universities, and central government ministries occupy a large share of that limited area, the land actually available for shops and commerce is tight — part of why Akihabara's stores are packed so densely into multi-story buildings.

Source:Location, Area, and Population of the Ward - Chiyoda City

Correct answerAbout 70,000

Chiyoda Ward's resident-register population is about 70,000. Long known as a ward with a wildly outsized daytime population, Chiyoda has seen a wave of high-rise residential towers built in recent years as more people choose to live in central Tokyo, gradually nudging up a resident count once dismissed as too small to matter.

Source:Resident Register Population - Chiyoda City

Correct answerAbout 17 times

Because offices and businesses are so concentrated there, commuters and students swell Chiyoda's daytime population far above its resident population, giving it the highest day-to-night population ratio of any of Tokyo's 23 wards. That same structure explains why the streets around Akihabara feel packed with office workers on weekdays yet take on a completely different character at night and on holidays.

Source:Daytime Population, Resident Population, and Day-Night Population Ratio

Correct answerTaito Ward

The area popularly called Akihabara sits mainly in Chiyoda Ward's Sotokanda and Kanda-Sakumacho, but a portion of it also extends into Taito Ward. There is no official town called 'Akihabara' at all — the popular name simply spreads across a boundary between two wards, a mismatch between everyday place names and administrative maps that is fairly common in Japan's busiest districts.

Source:Akihabara - Wikipedia

Correct answerMore than 50

Kanda Curry Street, next to Akihabara, is home to more than 50 curry specialty restaurants, offering everything from European-style curry to Indian curry. The area's identity as a curry destination is closely tied to Kanda's history as a student and secondhand-bookshop district, where restaurants competed to serve filling, affordable curry to budget-conscious students.

Source:Kanda Curry Street (Spot Introduction)

Correct answerSanno Matsuri

Kanda Matsuri is held in odd-numbered years, while Hie Shrine's Sanno Matsuri is held in even-numbered years, alternating biennially. Both shrines hold prestigious status close to Edo Castle, and by the mid-Edo period the custom of holding each festival's grand procession in alternating years had taken hold, a tradition that survives today in their biennial schedule.

Source:A Guide to Enjoying Kanda Matsuri

Correct answerAbout 1,600 mm

According to Japan Meteorological Agency normals, Tokyo's annual precipitation is about 1,600 mm, with the rainy season and autumn's extended rains bringing the most rainfall. The nearby Kanda River has flooded repeatedly in the past, and flood-control measures such as underground regulating reservoirs continue to be built along its course even today.

Source:Tokyo Normals (Yearly/Monthly Values)

Correct answerNipponbashi

Akihabara is widely recognized, together with Osu in Nagoya and Nipponbashi in Osaka, as one of Japan's three great electronics towns. All three districts share a common origin in postwar stalls and black markets that grew into clusters of electronic-parts shops, though Akihabara has gone on to become by far the most internationally recognized of the three.

Source:Akihabara - Wikipedia

Correct answerSporting goods

Along Yasukuni-dori from Kanda-Ogawamachi to Surugadai-shita is "Kanda Sports Shopping Street," a cluster of sporting goods stores selling everything from ball-game gear to ski and snowboard equipment. It sits within the same Chiyoda Ward as Akihabara's electronics district, echoing a shared pattern of specialty shops clustering block by block across the ward.

Source:Kanda Sports Shopping Street (Spot Introduction)

Correct answerAbout 75%

According to Japan Meteorological Agency normals, Tokyo's average relative humidity in summer (July–August) is about 75%, adding to the muggy feel on top of the high temperatures. In an outdoor-shopping district like Akihabara, with its pedestrian paradise and street-level stores, crowds tend to thin out during the hottest midday hours and pick up again toward evening.

Source:Tokyo Normals (Yearly/Monthly Values)

Correct answer108 associations

Kanda Myojin is known as the guardian shrine of 108 neighborhood associations spanning Kanda, Nihonbashi, Akihabara, Otemachi, Marunouchi, and more. Because its parish stretches all the way to the office districts around the Imperial Palace and Tokyo Station, the shrine lives up to its alternate title as guardian of all Edo, watching over a remarkably wide swath of central Tokyo.

Source:What Is Kanda Myojin? | Edo's Guardian Shrine, Kanda Myojin

Correct answer30 km

The Shinkosai procession of Kanda Matsuri winds for about 30 km through Kanda, Nihonbashi, Marunouchi, and other districts. Carrying palanquins, mikoshi, and float figures from early morning until evening, the all-day procession is long enough that shops and companies along the route often adjust their business hours to accommodate it.

Source:When Is Kanda Matsuri Held? An Introduction to Its Schedule and Highlights

Correct answerEarly Meiji period

Following the 1869 (Meiji 2) fire in Aioicho, the Tokyo Prefectural Government established a roughly 9,000-tsubo (about 30,000 sq m) fire-prevention zone here the following year, 1870, in the early Meiji period. It was a disaster-prevention measure taken after repeated major fires swept through this Edo-era neighborhood of densely packed wooden houses, and this very fire-prevention zone became the direct origin of the place name 'Akihabara.'

Source:Prologue: The Origin of the Name Akihabara

Correct answerAkiba Daigongen

The following year, 1870, the fire-guardian deity Akiba Daigongen was invited from Enshu and enshrined as Chinka Shrine (Fire-Quelling Shrine). Locals came to call this shrine 'Akiba-sama' or 'Akihabara,' and when a station opened nearby in 1890 and borrowed the same name, the fire deity's name spread nationwide as the name of the entire district.

Source:Prologue: The Origin of the Name Akihabara

Correct answerLocally the area was called "Akibahara," but the station was given the reading "Akihabara"

Locally the area was called "Akibahara" (or "Akibappara"), but the newly built station was given the reading "Akihabara," and this reading eventually became standard nationwide. Cases where a station's official reading diverges from the local pronunciation and then sticks are not unique to Akihabara, but it is often cited as one of the best-known examples of the pattern.

Source:Prologue: The Origin of the Name Akihabara

Correct answerThe Showa 20s (mid-1940s–mid-1950s)

The 1951 (Showa 26) street-stall reorganization order moved stalls selling radio parts and other goods beneath the elevated tracks. It marked the turning point when businesses that had started out in black markets were reorganized by the authorities into legitimate shops, and this cluster beneath the elevated line is said to have formed the skeleton of the electric town that followed.

Source:Prologue: The Origin of the Name Akihabara

Correct answerRevitalizing the district and improving the shopping environment

The Akihabara Electrical Town Organization was founded in 1979 (Showa 54) as a voluntary association aimed at revitalizing the district and improving its shopping environment. Bringing individual electronics shops together under a shared sense of managing the district as a single cohesive 'town' laid the groundwork for later initiatives such as the pedestrian paradise.

Source:About the Electrical Town Organization

Correct answerThe late 1970s (Showa 50s)

The bronze statue of Confucius was donated in 1975 (Showa 50) by the city of Taipei, Republic of China. Yushima Seido began as an academy directly overseen by the Edo shogunate, and its standing as a center of Confucian scholarship in Japan is generally understood to be why the statue was presented as a symbol of civic friendship with Taiwan.

Source:The Full Grounds | Historic Site Yushima Seido | Shibunkai Foundation

Correct answerResurrection Cathedral

Nikolai-do is designated a National Important Cultural Property under the name "Resurrection Cathedral of the Japan Orthodox Church." Its popular nickname, 'Nikolai-do,' honors Archbishop Nicholas, the founder of the Japanese Orthodox Church, while the official name reflects that the cathedral commemorates Christ's resurrection.

Source:Resurrection Cathedral of the Japan Orthodox Church (Nikolai-do)

Correct answerIts bell tower and dome collapsed

Nikolai-do suffered major damage in the Great Kanto Earthquake, including the collapse of its bell tower and dome. Restoration was designed by the architect Shinichiro Okada and carried out over several years in the early Showa period, rebuilding the cathedral into the form that has been passed down to the present day, even as traces of the earthquake's damage remain part of its story.

Source:History – Holy Resurrection Cathedral of Tokyo (Nikolai-do)Important Cultural Property: Holy Resurrection Cathedral of the Japan Orthodox Church (Nikolai-do) — Restoration

Correct answerAn alternate name for Yushima Seido that references Confucius's hometown, "Changping"

Shoheibashi's name derives from "Shoheizaka Gakumonjo," an alternate name for Yushima Seido that references Confucius's hometown, "Changping." Because the academy stood right at the foot of the bridge, the name of this center of Confucian scholarship carried straight over to become the name of the bridge spanning the Kanda River.

Source:Shoheibashi

Correct answerThat arteries of central Tokyo, the Yamanote and Sobu lines, cross here, among other things

The name embodies the idea that the Yamanote and Sobu lines, "arteries of central Tokyo," cross here, and that the Tsukuba Express further links the area with Tsukuba. Beyond the literal crossing of rail lines, the name also layers in the sense of a district where the electronics trade meets the IT industry, and where longtime locals cross paths with visitors from across Japan and beyond.

Source:Chapter 7: Crossfield Completed, Redevelopment in Front of Akihabara Station

Correct answer22 floors

Akihabara UDX is a mixed-use building with 22 floors above ground and 3 below ground. This large complex houses offices, event halls, and restaurants, and as the core facility of the Akihabara Crossfield redevelopment project, it created a new face for the district — an IT and content-industry hub standing right beside the traditional electronics district.

Source:Akihabara's New IT Hub "Akihabara Crossfield" — Grand Opening on Thursday, March 9

Correct answerA third-sector company funded by local governments along the line

Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company is a third-sector company established with funding from the prefectures and municipalities along the Tsukuba Express line. Much of the roughly 1 trillion yen construction cost was covered by interest-free loans from national and local governments, giving the line a distinctly public-oriented origin quite different from a purely private railway.

Source:Company History

Correct answerThe former site of Sakuma Elementary School

Sakuma Park was created on the former site of Sakuma Elementary School. Small and midsize printing and bookbinding businesses still cluster in the surrounding neighborhood, giving the area an old-town character quite different from the electronics district and high-rises further north, and offering a glimpse of Akihabara's other, more residential-feeling side.

Source:Sakuma Park

Correct answerRadio calisthenics (rajio taiso) gatherings

Sakuma Park is introduced by the Chiyoda City Tourism Association as the "birthplace of radio calisthenics gatherings." That a public square built on a former school site became the starting point for a neighborhood health activity is a small reminder that the area's history runs through everyday residential life, not just its famous electronics trade.

Source:Birthplace of Radio Calisthenics Gatherings (Spot Guide)

Correct answerBrick veneer applied to the surface of a reinforced-concrete structure

This section was built with reinforced-concrete arches, the most advanced technique of its day, but brick was applied only to the surface to match the appearance of the section to the south. This very red-brick elevated line became the 'beneath the tracks' space where postwar stalls selling electronic parts lined up side by side — the prototype of the electric town's landscape as it looks today.

Source:The Secret Origin Story of Akihabara's Electronics District: The Key Was the Elevated Line