Review questions from the real quiz with answers, explanations and sources. Think it through first, then reveal the correct answer.
This is a selection from the question pool — the real quiz also draws questions you won’t find here.
Last updated: 2026-09-14
Suwa is a place where water, faith, and craftsmanship keep circling back to each other, and these first ten questions sketch that outline. Expect the castle once nicknamed the “Floating Castle of Suwa,” the four sanctuaries of Suwa Taisha and its thunderous Onbashira Festival, the rolling plateau of Kirigamine, and an industrial story that ran from silk reeling to precision machinery. A National Treasure clay figure from the Jomon era and the winter legend of omiwatari make an appearance too. Answer every one of these and Suwa's basic shape should already be clear to you.
Correct answerLake Suwa
Lake Suwa has the largest surface area of any lake in Nagano Prefecture, sitting at the low point of the Suwa Basin and gathering runoff from the surrounding mountains. Its drainage basin is many times larger than the lake itself, and the lake has long shaped the region's climate, its smelt fishing, and its tourism.
Source:諏訪湖の特徴編
Correct answerFour
Suwa Taisha has four shrines in total, two at the Upper Shrines and two at the Lower Shrines, and shisha-mairi visits all four in a set order. The Upper and Lower Shrines sit on opposite sides of Lake Suwa, and the customary visiting sequence has been passed down for generations.
Source:諏訪大社とは
Correct answerEvery 6 years (Tiger and Monkey years)
Formally called the Shikinen Zoei Onbashira Taisai, Suwa Taisha's grandest festival is held only in the Year of the Tiger and the Year of the Monkey, once every six years by Western counting. Huge logs are hauled down from the mountains and raised anew at the four corners of each sanctuary, and the sight of parishioners riding the logs down steep slopes marks one of the defining rhythms of life in Suwa.
Source:式年造営御柱大祭
Correct answerLake water and wetlands made it appear to float
When Takashima Castle was completed, water and wetlands surrounded it on three sides, making the keep appear to float on Lake Suwa — hence its nickname, the “Floating Castle of Suwa.” It served as the seat of the Takashima domain throughout the Edo period, though later land reclamation moved the shoreline away, and the keep now stands well within the modern city.
Source:諏訪高島城
Correct answerLava erupted from Mount Kurumayama
Kirigamine is a broad, gently rolling plateau built up from lava erupted by its main peak, Mount Kurumayama. The high, open terrain is prone to sudden fog, which gave the plateau its name, and it changes character with the seasons — daylilies and other wildflowers in summer, and an open snowfield in winter.
Source:霧ヶ峰の概要
Correct answerSerurii
In Hara village, celery is locally called “serurii,” and it stands as one of the village's signature summer highland vegetables. The cool climate at this elevation, along with the wide swing between daytime and nighttime temperatures near the Yatsugatake foothills, is credited with giving the celery its sweetness and crisp texture, alongside the many other highland vegetables grown there.
Source:八ヶ岳の恵み！ 高原野菜やお花が原村の特産品です
Correct answerOnly the Suwa area
Industrially dried powdered agar is produced in many parts of Japan, but natural square agar — freeze-dried outdoors through the winter cold and dry sunshine — is said to be made only in the Suwa area. The basin's cold, dry, sunny winters, a distinctive feature of its climate, are what allow this traditional method to continue today.
Source:茅野市の地場産業～天然角寒天～
Correct answerTanabatake Site
The National Treasure dogu known as the “Jomon Venus” was excavated at the Tanabatake Site in Chino, and it represents the middle Jomon period. It is one of the rare dogu figurines able to stand upright on its own, and its rounded form and the glittering biotite mixed into its clay are cited as evidence of the sophisticated craftsmanship and spiritual life of its makers.
Source:国宝「土偶」（縄文のビーナス）
Correct answerThe Switzerland of the East
After the silk industry that had built up the Suwa–Okaya area declined, the region successfully pivoted to precision machinery after the war and earned the nickname “the Switzerland of the East,” a nod to Switzerland's own precision-engineering reputation. Abundant water, clean air, and the fine handwork skills carried over from silk reeling all fed into that new industry.
Source:諏訪地域の情報
Correct answerTrue
Omiwatari refers to cracks that open in Lake Suwa's ice and rise into a ridge resembling a mountain range crossing the lake's surface. Legend holds that it traces the path of the male deity of the Upper Shrines crossing to the goddess of the Lower Shrines, a phenomenon still cherished today as one of Suwa's classic winter sights.
Source:諏訪湖の御神渡り
Even people who grew up in Suwa hit the occasional wall on these fifteen questions. There's the name for Onbashira's most talked-about slope-riding scene, the nickname for a cluster of sake breweries packed along an old post road in Kamisuwa, a wooden clog fitted with a metal blade that was once used for skating, and a footbath built directly into a train platform. Suwa Taisha's role as the head shrine for “Suwa Jinja” shrines nationwide, and the finer points of the region's turn toward precision machinery, show up here too. If you've walked these streets or tasted the local sake, more than one answer should already feel familiar.
Correct answerKiotoshi
During yamadashi, the mountain-hauling stage of the Onbashira Festival, the moment parishioners ride a great log straight down a steep slope — called kiotoshi — is considered the festival's single biggest highlight. Riders cling to the log without safety ropes as it plunges downhill, and images of this moment are among the most widely used to represent the festival itself.
Source:式年造営御柱大祭
Correct answer“Suwa Gokura” (five breweries)
Along roughly 500 meters of the old Koshu Kaido road in Kamisuwa stand five sake breweries — Maihime, Reijin, Honkin, Yokobue, and Masumi — collectively nicknamed “Suwa Gokura.” Having five distinct breweries within easy walking distance of one another is unusual even by national standards, and organized brewery-hopping tours through the district are held regularly.
Source:諏訪観光協会
Correct answerWater from Lake Suwa
All five Suwa Gokura breweries brew with groundwater that began as rain falling on the Kirigamine highlands, then spent years filtering slowly underground before reaching the breweries below. Even though the breweries share this single water source, differences in yeast strains and brewing methods give each one's sake a distinct character, which is part of what makes tasting them side by side so rewarding.
Source:諏訪五蔵
Correct answer“Geta-skate”
In the Suwa area, a traditional wooden geta clog fitted with a metal blade — nicknamed “iron knuckle” — was a common way to skate long before dedicated skating boots became widespread. Because it cost far less than proper skates, many households are said to have kept a pair on hand, and children would use them to glide across frozen rice paddies or the ice of Lake Suwa itself each winter.
Source:茅野市のスケート文化
Correct answerMount Yatsugatake
The Yatsugatake range rises along the eastern edge of the Suwa area, and its ridgeline is visible from almost anywhere in the Suwa Basin. It is counted among the “100 Famous Mountains of Japan” selected by mountaineer Kyuya Fukada, and its cluster of peaks, capped by the highest, Mount Akadake, forms a backdrop that residents of Suwa see change with every season.
Source:諏訪地域の情報
Correct answerThe head shrine
Suwa Taisha is regarded as the head shrine for the many shrines across Japan named “Suwa Jinja.” Long revered by warrior clans as a god of war and martial strength, its worship is thought to have spread nationwide from the Kamakura period onward, so most “Suwa Jinja” a traveler encounters elsewhere are branch shrines carrying a portion of Suwa Taisha's spirit.
Source:諏訪大社とは
Correct answerThe male god of Kamisha, crossing to the goddess of Shimosha
A romantic legend surrounds omiwatari: the male deity Takeminakata, enshrined at Suwa Taisha's Upper Shrines, is said to have crossed the lake every night to visit the goddess Yasakatome at the Lower Shrines, and the cracking ice traces the path of that nightly crossing. Reading a natural, seasonal phenomenon as a route walked by the gods reflects how deeply local faith and the landscape are woven together in Suwa.
Source:諏訪湖の御神渡り
Correct answerChino City
Tateshina Kogen is a highland resort area in Chino City that developed as a summer retreat thanks to its high elevation and cool climate even in the hottest months. Hot springs, vacation homes, campgrounds, and golf courses cluster here around Lake Tateshina, making it one of the Suwa area's leading resort destinations, drawing visitors throughout the year rather than only in summer.
Source:諏訪地域の情報
Correct answerOkaya City
Okaya City sits right where the Tenryu River begins its flow out of Lake Suwa, and a long tradition of eating eel caught abundantly in the lake and its rivers earned the city the nickname “Eel Town Okaya.” Long-established eel restaurants still line its streets today, and locals continue to enjoy eel not only in midsummer but throughout the year.
Source:うなぎのまち おかや
Correct answerA footbath
Platform 1 at JR Kamisuwa Station has a real hot-spring footbath built right into it, free to use for anyone holding a train ticket or platform pass while waiting for their train. A footbath on a railway platform is unusual anywhere in Japan, and it has become a well-known symbol of just how abundant Kamisuwa's hot-spring resources are.
Source:諏訪の温泉・諏訪に泊まる
Correct answerIt's known for cherry blossoms
Takashima Park, home to the castle's reconstructed keep, is also a well-known cherry-blossom spot, drawing large crowds each spring who come to see the blossoms framed against the tower. The sight of full bloom set against a castle once nicknamed the “Floating Castle of Suwa” has become one of Suwa City's signature spring scenes.
Source:諏訪高島城
Correct answerSwans (tundra swans)
Every winter, large numbers of tundra swans arrive at Lake Suwa, becoming one of the lake's most cherished seasonal sights for visitors along its shore. Even though the lake can freeze over completely in the coldest stretches, the swans rest on whatever open water remains, often arriving around the same season that omiwatari becomes a topic of conversation.
Source:諏訪湖の御神渡り
Correct answerA Niagara-falls sparkler wall
Lake Suwa's fireworks festival is famous for its “water starmine,” a rapid, continuous burst of shells fired from launch platforms set up directly on the lake. Because the Suwa Basin is ringed by mountains, the sound and light of the fireworks echo and intensify, and the reflections on the water's surface add to the spectacle, drawing large crowds from well beyond the prefecture.
Source:2026 諏訪湖の花火
Correct answerPrecision machinery (cameras, watches, etc.)
The fine, careful handwork skills built up over decades in the silk-reeling industry carried over directly into precision machinery, and after the war the Suwa–Okaya area rapidly developed manufacturing for cameras, watches, and other precision instruments. That accumulated expertise later became the foundation for regional precision-equipment makers such as Seiko Epson, turning Suwa–Okaya into one of Japan's major precision-industry clusters.
Source:諏訪地域の情報
Correct answerSuwaichi
“Suwaichi” is a local initiative encouraging visitors to cycle once around the roughly 16-kilometer shoreline of Lake Suwa. Riders who take photos at three designated spots along the route and show them at a tourist information center in Okaya, Shimosuwa, or Kamisuwa receive a commemorative certificate and a pin badge, making it an easy, welcoming challenge even for first-time visitors to the area.
Source:スワイチ
These last fifteen questions separate casual familiarity with Suwa from the real thing. They cover how many times larger the lake's watershed is than the lake itself, the swords and seeds unearthed from local burial mounds, the years in which each of Suwa Taisha's four sanctuaries built its oldest surviving hall, and rites such as Ontosai and the overnight reed-tube harvest divination. A silk museum's shifting honors, a merchant family's mixed Japanese-and-Western residence, and the quiet work of protecting a fragile wetland round out the set. Ordering and multiple-select questions are woven throughout, asking you to rebuild scattered facts into a single connected timeline.
Correct answer40
Lake Suwa's drainage basin covers about 531.2 square kilometers, roughly 40 times the lake's own surface area of 13.3 square kilometers. Rain and snowmelt falling anywhere within that broad basin eventually make their way into the lake, before draining out through its sole outlet, the Tenryu River, on the long journey toward the Pacific Ocean.
Source:諏訪湖の特徴編
Correct answerCOD / Nitrogen / Water chestnut / Low oxygen
Nagano Prefecture lists several ongoing challenges for Lake Suwa: elevated COD (chemical oxygen demand) indicating water pollution, nitrogen and other nutrients driving eutrophication, water chestnut (hishi) spreading so thickly it covers large stretches of the surface, and low-oxygen conditions near the lakebed. The prefecture and local communities work together on multiple fronts, from cutting back water chestnut to controlling inflow, to address these issues.
Source:諏訪湖の浄化対策
Correct answerContinued Top 100
Takashima Castle was named to the “Continued 100 Fine Castles of Japan” list, compiled by the Japan Castle Association, on April 6, 2017 — the second wave of selections following the original “100 Fine Castles of Japan.” The unusual lakeside setting that earned it the nickname “Floating Castle of Suwa,” along with the well-preserved condition of its keep and grounds, is thought to have contributed to its selection, and it now draws castle enthusiasts from across the country.
Source:諏訪高島城
Correct answerWavy blade
The grave goods excavated from Fune Kofun, including a distinctive wavy-bladed sword, have been designated prefectural treasures of Nagano. A blade with an undulating, snake-like curve is a rare form among Kofun-period swords, and its presence suggests that a person of considerable local power and status was buried here in the Suwa area.
Source:指定文化財・遺跡のご案内
Correct answerPerilla
Carbonized perilla seeds unearthed at the Kojinyama Site have drawn attention as possible evidence that some form of plant cultivation was already underway during the Jomon period. Perilla can be used for its oil and as food, so its presence hints at a lifestyle that went beyond pure hunting and gathering to include the deliberate management of useful nearby plants.
Source:指定文化財・遺跡のご案内
Correct answer1608
The oldest building still standing at Kamisha Honmiya was built in 1608, when Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered his retainer Okubo Nagayasu to carry out its construction. That Ieyasu himself took a direct interest in maintaining Suwa Taisha so soon after founding the Edo shogunate speaks to how seriously the era's warrior class regarded devotion to the Suwa deities.
Source:諏訪大社上社本宮
Correct answer75
At Maemiya's Ontosai rite, tradition holds that as many as 75 deer heads were once offered on the Day of the Rooster in the third lunar month. The rite continues today in a modified form, but this striking practice has long drawn attention as evidence that Suwa's religious traditions carry strong elements of hunting culture, distinct from the rice-farming rites more typical of Shinto.
Source:諏訪大社上社前宮
Correct answerJan 14 night–15 morning
Every year at Shimosha Harumiya, from the night of January 14 into the morning of the 15th, priests hold a distinctive divination rite using rice, azuki beans, and reed tubes to read that year's coming harvest and weather. The rite carries agricultural wisdom about reading nature forward into a formal ceremony still performed today.
Source:諏訪大社下社春宮
Correct answerTatekawa Tomimune
Akimiya's worship hall was completed in 1781 under the direction of the first-generation master carpenter Tomimune Tatekawa. Built by the craftsman who founded the Tatekawa school of ornamental woodcarving, the hall's intricate carvings are considered one of the highlights of Shimosha Akimiya, and it remains designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan today.
Source:諏訪大社下社秋宮
Correct answerTakashi Shimizu
The bronze guardian lions in the precincts of Akimiya were created by the sculptor Takashi Shimizu, a native of Hara village, and were dedicated to the shrine in 1960. Shimizu studied sculpture in France before becoming one of Japan's leading sculptors, and his signature works are on permanent display back home at the Yatsugatake Art Museum in Hara.
Source:諏訪大社下社秋宮
Correct answerBiotite
The tiny glittering flecks visible on the surface of the “Jomon Venus” are grains of biotite, a mineral naturally present in the clay used to shape the figure. Whether the makers deliberately mixed in clay rich in biotite or simply used what was locally available is still debated, but the way the figure catches and reflects light remains one of its most striking features for visitors today.
Source:展示物についてのよくあるご質問
Correct answerBoardwalk maintenance / Rope barriers
Kirigamine's wetlands sit on a distinctive, waterlogged soil that is easily damaged by foot traffic and can take many years to recover once disturbed. To prevent this, Suwa City has built boardwalks that confine visitors to fixed paths and installed rope barriers to keep people off the fragile ground, an ongoing effort to protect the wetlands' rare alpine plant communities for the long term.
Source:霧ヶ峰湿原植物群落
Correct answerOpened 1964 / Industry 2007 / Engineering 2011 / Moved 2014
The Okaya Silk Museum first opened in 1964, was recognized as a Heritage of Industrial Modernization in 2007 and as a Mechanical Engineering Heritage in 2011, and then relocated to its current site in 2014. Across more than half a century of changing recognition and location, it has continued to carry forward the story of Okaya's history as a center of the silk-reeling industry.
Source:蚕糸博物館について
Correct answerMain house / Detached rooms / Tea house / Western wing
The former Hayashi residence is made up of four distinct building types — a main house, detached rooms, a tea house, and a Western-style wing — along with a row of storehouses on the south side of the property, together conveying the lifestyle of the Hayashi family, who built their fortune in silk reeling. Having Japanese- and Western-style buildings coexist on a single property reflects the tastes of local industrialists who prospered from the Meiji through Taisho eras.
Source:旧林家住宅
Correct answerTogariishi / Yosukeone / Yosukeone South
The Special Historic Site known as the Togariishi Stone Age Ruins is made up of three separate sites — Togariishi, Yosukeone, and Yosukeone South — all clustered together along a single elongated upland. The area preserves an unusually dense concentration of Jomon-period settlement remains and has been the setting for archaeological research considered significant in the history of Japanese archaeology.
Source:尖石石器時代遺跡追加指定