How to play Impostor with Famous Historic Cities
Published: 2026-11-05 Updated: 2026-11-05 1224 words 6 min read
The Famous Historic Cities category pits Venice against Pompeii, Kyoto against Siem Reap and Toledo against Isfahan. Each player describes the city they were dealt without naming it, while the impostor invents a description that fits. Era, landmark and country become the decisive clue.
Table of contents
- What a Famous Historic Cities round actually looks like
- How the historic cities category works in the game
- The real cities in the database and the clue that fits each one
- Strategies for an impostor who does not know the cities
- How to catch the impostor when you know history
- The traps this category keeps setting
- Recommended settings for a historic cities game
- House rules to make the historic cities category harder
- Frequently asked questions
What a Famous Historic Cities round actually looks like
The game secretly deals one city from the database. Each player writes a clue: the country, a landmark, the century when it mattered or the empire that built it.
The impostor has no city and has to bluff. The category works because everyone has heard of Athens or Jerusalem but very few know which country they are in or what makes them different.
- Best with 4 to 12 players
- Rounds last 3 to 6 minutes
- Great for travel friends, families and history classes
- Free in the browser, nothing to install
- Table mode lets you play it in person with cards
How the historic cities category works in the game
The list runs from Pompeii to Bratislava, with Luxor, Teotihuacan, Marrakech and St Petersburg in between. The typical clue mentions one concrete detail: the volcano, the Inca, the canals or the castle.
The impostor usually falls back on vague descriptions: 'it is ancient', 'it has a castle' or 'it is in Europe'. Those clues collapse when somebody asks for the country or the century.
- Create the room and select the Ciudades Históricas Famosas category
- Write a clue with a verifiable fact: country, century or landmark
- Read the other clues and hunt for impossible combinations
- Debate in the chat and vote for the suspect
- The ejected player reveals their city and the next round starts
The real cities in the database and the clue that fits each one
The database holds twenty-one cities. These fifteen are the easiest to turn into evidence: one exact fact about each one lets you close the round in two minutes. Oxford, Carcassonne, Nuremberg, Siem Reap, Isfahan and Bratislava complete the list. In the app the names appear in Spanish: Teotihuacán, Carcasona, Núremberg.
| City | Why it is on the list | A clue that fits its round |
|---|---|---|
| Venice | Italian city built entirely on water | You get around by boat and St Mark's Square is there |
| Pompeii | Roman city buried by Mount Vesuvius | It was buried in 79 AD |
| Cusco | Former capital of the Inca Empire | It is the gateway to Machu Picchu |
| Luxor | Egyptian city of ancient temples | Its temples sit on the far bank of the Nile |
| Athens | Birthplace of democracy | Its main temple stands on the Acropolis hill |
| Kyoto | Historic capital of Japan | It kept thousands of temples and was the capital until 1868 |
| Istanbul | City straddling two continents | It was Constantinople and sits on the Bosphorus |
| Petra | Jordanian city carved into rock | Its front facade is reached through a narrow canyon |
| Xi'an | Symbol of imperial China | It holds the terracotta army of the Qin emperor |
| Teotihuacan | Great pre-Columbian city in Mexico | Its Sun and Moon pyramids predate the Aztecs |
| Jerusalem | Holy city for three religions | Any clue about the sea fails: it has no coast |
| Toledo | Spanish city of three cultures | It was the capital of Spain before Madrid |
| Marrakech | Moroccan city of contrasts | Its medina is a maze of souks |
| St Petersburg | Russian city of palaces and canals | Peter the Great founded it in 1703 |
| Jaipur | Indian city known as the Pink City | Its palaces are painted one specific colour |
Strategies for an impostor who does not know the cities
You do not need to have travelled anywhere. The impostor wins when the description sounds plausible, not when it is correct.
- Lean on shared traits: 'it is very old', 'it has a castle', 'it is touristy'.
- Anchor your clue to a continent already named: 'also in Asia' costs you nothing.
- Skip exact landmarks. Naming the Colosseum when nobody talks about Rome exposes you.
- Reorder the previous clue instead of copying it word for word.
- Ask rather than state: 'is yours near the sea?' forces the others to explain.
- If the table talks about empires, talk about empires: tone is what betrays the impostor.
How to catch the impostor when you know history
Knowing history only helps if you ask precise questions. A closed question forces the suspect to give a fact that can be checked.
- Ask for the country: a clue with no country attached is usually invented
- Ask for the century: Rome, the Inca and the Ottomans do not overlap
- Hunt the impossible: Jerusalem has no beach, so that clue is fake
- Watch who writes late: the impostor needs time to invent the clue
- Align the vote: split accusations hand the round to the impostor
The traps this category keeps setting
- Cusco is the city; Machu Picchu belongs to a different category
- Kyoto is not Tokyo: one is historic, the other is the current capital
- Carcasona is spelled in Spanish even though the town is French
- Petra also appears in other lists, so two players may name it
- Xi'an is a living city; the terracotta army is on its outskirts
- Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia, not of Austria
Recommended settings for a historic cities game
With well-travelled groups the full list is a real challenge. With children, keep only the cities they meet in textbooks.
| Group type | Players | Best mode | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friends or family | 6 to 10 | Online multiplayer | 25 min |
| History or art class | 10 to 15 | Multi-room multiplayer | 45 min |
| In-person game night | 4 to 8 | Table mode | 15 min per round |
| Travel club or museum group | 8 to 12 | Online multiplayer | 30 min |
House rules to make the historic cities category harder
Once the group knows the list by heart, these house rules raise the difficulty:
- Cities from one continent only
- Mandatory clue: it must mention the century or the empire
- One-word clues
- Two impostors with different invented cities
- The ejected player becomes the impostor in the next round