Clear the Karuizawa Local Quiz and earn the Karuizawa Local title. Want to know Karuizawa even better, or already confident? The tougher courses are next.
Post town, summer retreat, highland resort with a shinkansen stop: Karuizawa has reinvented itself more than once, and this quiz traces every layer. It asks about the landscapes born of Mount Asama, from Shiraito Falls to the rock field of Onioshidashi, and about the walking path around Kumoba Pond. It follows the old Nakasendo through Oiwake and Kutsukake, then turns to the resort culture that began with A. C. Shaw, and to the churches and grand hotels that shaped the town's character. Knowing that Kyu-Karuizawa and Oiwake are not the same place puts you ahead of most visitors. Start from the lowest rank, and think of it as finding your path through the morning mist.
Q1.Which mountain, shaped by repeated volcanic activity, is widely known as a symbol of Karuizawa?
Mount Hanare
Mount Asama
Mount Myogi
Mount Yatsugatake
Reveal the correct answer
Correct answerMount Asama
Mount Asama is an active volcano shaped by repeated eruptions, with steam still rising near its summit today. Straddling the border of Nagano and Gunma prefectures, its silhouette can be seen from nearly anywhere in Karuizawa, and it has anchored the area's identity long before the town became known as a summer retreat.
Q2.What feeds the hundreds of threadlike streams descending from the rock face at Shiraito Falls?
Only snowmelt
Irrigation water
Groundwater
Water released from a lake
Reveal the correct answer
Correct answerGroundwater
Shiraito Falls is fed not by a single stream but by groundwater that has slowly filtered down through the volcanic soil at the foot of Mount Asama over many years before seeping out across a wide rock face. Because the water emerges from hundreds of points at once rather than one channel, the falls take on their distinctive look of countless white threads hanging side by side.
Q3.Which English-derived nickname is also used for Kumoba Pond?
Swan Lake
Mirror Lake
Blue Lake
Forest Lake
Reveal the correct answer
Correct answerSwan Lake
Kumoba Pond is one of Karuizawa's best-loved walking spots, its calm surface reflecting the surrounding trees so vividly that foreign visitors who summered here grew fond of it and gave it the English-derived nickname 'Swan Lake,' a name still used today. Locals and travelers alike return in autumn, when the foliage around its shore turns especially bright.
Q4.The "Karuizawa Tournament," which began in 1917 (Taisho 6), is known as what kind of event?
Japan's first official professional baseball game
Japan's first international marathon
Japan's first Olympic trial event
Japan's oldest surviving open tennis tournament
Reveal the correct answer
Correct answerJapan's oldest surviving open tennis tournament
The Karuizawa Tournament began in 1917 and is considered Japan's oldest continuously held tennis tournament. Foreign summer residents and Japanese players sharing the same courts helped tennis take root in the town, and the tournament has continued nearly every summer for more than a century since.
Q5.Which pair of utilities was absent when Hatta Villa was first built?
A well and lamps
Electricity and piped water
An entrance and stairs
Windows and a fireplace
Reveal the correct answer
Correct answerElectricity and piped water
When Hatta Villa was first built, it had neither electricity nor piped water; daily water came from a well on the property, and oil lamps provided light after dark. The arrangement is a reminder of just how different, and how much less convenient, villa life in Karuizawa once was compared with today.
