Clear the Kumamoto Local Quiz and earn the Kumamoto Local title. Want to know Kumamoto City even better, or already confident? The tougher courses are next.
Kumamoto City has long been called the Forest Capital, and water runs through this quiz the way it runs beneath the streets. Expect questions on Kumamoto Castle and its castle town, on Suizenji Jojuen garden and Lake Ezu, on the streetcars that thread the city, and on a dinner table set with karashi renkon, ikinari dango, and dago-jiru. The story of recovery after the earthquake belongs here as well, told through the details of everyday life. Knowing the names of the landmarks is only the surface; these questions reach for what flows underneath. Take a sip of spring water, so to speak, and begin with the question of the day.
All of Kumamoto City's tap water comes from groundwater, drawn up largely without the chemical treatment most municipal water requires. The aquifer beneath the city is fed by rain that seeps slowly through volcanic ash plains left by Mount Aso's eruptions and through paddy fields further upstream, a natural recharge process the city depends on to keep the supply flowing.
Suizenji Jojuen is a daimyo garden begun in 1636 by Hosokawa Tadatoshi, the first lord of the Higo-Kumamoto domain, and brought to its present scale under the third lord, Tsunatoshi. Mounds arranged around the central pond are said to echo scenery along the fifty-three post stations of the Tokaido road, including one shaped to resemble Mount Fuji.
Kumamoto Castle stands in Kumamoto City's Chuo Ward, well apart from Aso City. It is known as the castle Kato Kiyomasa began building in 1601 and completed six years later, and it is famous for its curved stone walls, called musha-gaeshi, that grow steeper toward the top to make climbing them nearly impossible.
Q4.Which international award recognized the groundwater conservation work?
UN “Water for Life” Best Award
International Wetland Prize
Water Resources Future Prize
Urban Environment Prize
Reveal the correct answer
Correct answerUN “Water for Life” Best Award
Kumamoto City's groundwater conservation work rests on decades of steady monitoring of both water quality and quantity. The United Nations "Water for Life" Best Practices Award recognized that record internationally, crediting not just city government but also residents and businesses for sustaining the effort together over the long term.
Q5.What conflict preceded the fire that destroyed much of Kumamoto Castle?
The Great Kanto Earthquake
A typhoon disaster
The fire before the Satsuma attack in the Satsuma Rebellion
A Meiji-era fire
Reveal the correct answer
Correct answerThe fire before the Satsuma attack in the Satsuma Rebellion
Most of Kumamoto Castle's main buildings, including its keep and the Honmaru Palace, were lost to a fire that broke out just before Satsuma forces closed in during the Satsuma Rebellion. Some accounts say the defenders set the fire themselves to deny the enemy a stronghold. The present keep is a reinforced-concrete reconstruction completed in 1960.
