History and Politics

Ancient Japan to the Edo Period

25 practice questions, each with the answer and an explanation.

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Random questions from this topic, one at a time. You see the answer and the explanation straight after each one.

All 25 questions

  1. Which period of Japanese history began in 1603 when Tokugawa Ieyasu took the title of shogun?
  2. In 794 Emperor Kammu moved the court to a new capital that stayed the imperial seat for over a thousand years. Which city was it?
  3. The Taika Reforms of 645 tried to centralise Japanese government on the model of which foreign state?
  4. Which court lady wrote the early eleventh century novel The Tale of Genji?
  5. Who set up the first military government at Kamakura and was named shogun in 1192?
  6. In 1274 and 1281 Japan repelled invasion fleets, helped by storms later called the divine wind. Whose empire sent them?
  7. Which warlord, born into a foot-soldier family, finished unifying Japan in 1590 after the death of Oda Nobunaga?
  8. Which 1600 battle gave Tokugawa Ieyasu control over Japan?
  9. On which island did the Portuguese arrive in 1543, introducing firearms to Japan?
  10. During the Edo-period seclusion policy, which European traders were still allowed to deal at Nagasaki?
  11. What did the sankin-kotai system require of the daimyo?
  12. In the Edo-period class order, which group ranked directly below the samurai?
  13. Which regent of Empress Suiko is credited with the Seventeen-Article Constitution of 604?
  14. Which emperor of the Nara period ordered the Great Buddha of Todai-ji to be cast?
  15. Which family dominated the Heian court by marrying daughters to emperors and serving as regents?
  16. Which clan lost the Genpei War at the naval battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185?
  17. Which Muromachi shogun had the Golden Pavilion of Kinkaku-ji built as his retreat?
  18. Which conflict beginning in 1467 destroyed much of Kyoto and opened the age of warring states?
  19. Which Jesuit missionary landed at Kagoshima in 1549 and began Christian missions in Japan?
  20. Which English navigator, arriving in 1600, advised Tokugawa Ieyasu and received the Japanese name Miura Anjin?
  21. Which uprising of 1637 to 1638 by mostly Christian peasants in Kyushu led the shogunate to tighten the seclusion policy?
  22. Which prehistoric culture brought wet-rice farming and metalworking to Japan from around the fourth century BC?
  23. What is the typical shape of the large burial mounds built in the Kofun period?
  24. Which emperor overthrew the Kamakura shogunate in 1333 with the help of Ashikaga Takauji, then was driven out by Takauji?
  25. Which Tokugawa shogun, in office from 1623 to 1651, formalised sankin-kotai and issued the seclusion edicts?

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Ancient Japan to the Edo Period quiz questions | GetMyMockTest