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Kanji for Kyoto
The kanji most commonly used for "Kyoto" are 京、洛、都.
京
Kanji that mean Kyoto
京 is the character for a capital, and 京都 is literally ‘capital city’ — the emperor’s seat for over a thousand years. The same 京 is the second half of 東京, the eastern capital, and appears in 上京, to go up to the capital. It is the character a reader connects with Kyoto first.
洛 is the literary name. It was taken from 洛陽, the Chinese capital Luoyang, and applied to Kyoto by analogy: 上洛 meant to travel up to Kyoto, a word familiar from warring-states history, and the city’s quarters are still called 洛中 (the center), along with 洛北, 洛東, 洛西 and 洛南 in guidebooks and shop names.
都 is the capital as a city rather than as an idea: 都市 (city), 首都 (a national capital), and the administrative 東京都. Set beside 京 it makes the name itself, and on its own it is read miyako, the old word for the imperial capital.
Before you use Kyoto kanji
洛 is a specialist's character: alone it says Kyoto only to someone who knows the 洛中 convention, and otherwise reads as a Chinese place name. 京 is the recognizable one, though by itself it means 'capital', which today is as likely to suggest Tokyo.