Which anthology is the oldest extant collection of Japanese waka?

The Man’yōshū is the oldest extant collection of Japanese waka. It was compiled during the Nara period, with its final datable poem from AD 759.

The anthology contains more than 4,500 poems arranged in 20 books. Its contents range across love poems, elegies, travel pieces, banquet songs, long poems called chōka, and short poems in the tanka tradition. The poets represent an unusually broad range of society, from emperors and aristocrats to soldiers, performers, peasants, and anonymous writers.

The collection was assembled in stages, and Ōtomo no Yakamochi is widely regarded as the final compiler or editor. Unlike later court anthologies, it was not created as one of Japan’s officially commissioned imperial collections. Its language and themes preserve an older layer of Japanese literary culture.

Kokinshū is a frequent wrong answer because it was the first imperial waka anthology, completed around 905. Shin Kokinshū is later still, while Ogura Hyakunin Isshu is a much later selection of 100 poems by 100 poets.