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Here's the sentence in question:

> 生まれた **のも** 育った **のも** 京都なんですよ

I thought using の in a sentence signified possession (e.g. 私の本 [My book]). If
I interpret the sentence as such, it doesn't make any sense.

Then I came to the conclusion that I should include the も from the sentence
and read it as のも, but doing that made the sentence even more confusing.
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grammar cleft-sentences
I don't understand what のも means in 生まれたのも育ったのも京都なんですよ
の is being used as a nominalizer (something that turns a verb into a noun) in
this case, with も meaning "as well as". So, literally, it would read something
like "My being born as well as my growing up were in Kyoto." In other words,
"I was born and raised in Kyoto."
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alexhatesmil's answer isn't wrong, but I just want to supplement regarding the
も and what it's doing.

So first, like the above の is a nominalizer.

But that means you need something to connect の blocks to the rest of the
sentence. You can do so with either は or も

so you could say:

> 育った **のは** 京都です。

= The place I was raised is Kyoto.

The も here replaces は as a topicalizer and adds "as well as"

> 生まれた **のも** 育った **のも** 京都です。
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## Cleft sentences

In linguistics, there's something called a **cleft sentence**. The basic idea
is that you split a sentence into two parts in order to focus something:

> _１ａ._ **I met** _her_ **that day**. _(original sentence)_  
>  _１ｂ._ It was _her_ that [ **I met** **that day** ]. _(clefted sentence)_

In this example, we split the sentence into **"I met __ that day"** and
_"her"_. Because we've neatly divided the sentence in two, we call this a
"cleft" sentence. It expresses the same basic information, but it puts the
focus on _"her"_ , the element we pulled out.

We could just as easily focus a different element instead:

> _２ａ._ **I met her** _that day_. _(original sentence)_  
>  _２ｂ._ It was _that day_ that [ **I met her** ]. _(clefted sentence)_

All of these sentences express the same basic information, but their focus is
a little bit different. We could think of our first cleft as answering the
question "Who did I meet that day?" and our second cleft as answering the
question "When did I meet her?"

With that in mind, let's look at our examples again:

> _1ｂ._ It was _her_ that [ **I met** **that day** ].
```

>         non-focused element: **I met _()_ that day**
>             focused element: **_()_** = _"her"_
```

>
> _２ｂ._ It was _that day_ that [ **I met her** ].
```

>         non-focused element: **I met her _()_**
>             focused element: **_()_** = _"that day"_
```

The non-focused element introduces a variable , and the focused element tells
us the value of .

* * *

## Cleft sentences in Japanese

Japanese has cleft sentences that work like this, too! You've probably seen
them before, although you might not have known the technical term. The most
basic type of cleft looks like **Ａ** のは **Ｂ** だ in Japanese, where **Ａ**
introduces a variable ****, and **Ｂ** tells us the value of that variable.

Let's use a simplified version of your sentence as an example:

> _３ａ._ [京都]{﹅・﹅}で **生まれた** 。 ' **[I] was born** _in Kyōto_.'

This is a basic sentence. We want to turn it into a cleft sentence, so let's
split it into two parts!

> _３ｂ._ **生まれた** のは[京都]{﹅・﹅}だ。 'It's _[in] Kyōto_ that **[I] was born**.'  
>
```

>         non-focused element: **_()_ 生まれた**
>             focused element: 京都で = **_()_**
```

We want to focus [京都]{﹅・﹅}で, which goes at the end of the sentence before だ
(dropping the case marker で). Then we add the nominalizer の to the non-focused
portion, 生まれた, so we can make it into the topic of the sentence.

Now we have a statement containing a variable ("[I] was born ") and we also
have the value of that variable ( = "[in] Kyōto"). Note that the final
sentence is missing the case particle で, so we have to understand the
relationship between the two halves from context.

By the way, sometimes it's natural to use a cleft in Japanese when we'd use a
non-cleft in English. So don't get too hung up on the English translations
here―they're designed to show you the meaning of the Japanese sentences, not
to give you the most natural way to communicate in English.

* * *

## Putting it all together

As it happens, your sentence is a little more complicated! To come up with
your sentence, we'll need to put two of these things together, and of course
when we do so we'll naturally need to use も instead of は. Let's start with
these sentences:

> _４ａ._ **生まれた** のは[京都]{﹅・﹅}だ。 'It's _[in] Kyōto_ that **[I] was born**.'  
>  _４ｂ._ **育った** のは[京都]{﹅・﹅}だ。 'It's _[in] Kyōto_ that **[I] was raised**.'

And combine them into this:

> _４ｃ._ **生まれた** のも **育った** のも[京都]{﹅・﹅}だ。 'It's _[in] Kyōto_ that **[I] was
> born and raised**.'

Finally, to get your sentence we have to make a few more changes. We'll add
のだ, contract の to the informal ん, replace だ with the polite です, and add the
assertive final particle よ:

> _４ｄ._ **生まれた** のも **育った** のも[京都]{﹅・﹅}なのだ。  
>  _４ｅ._ **生まれた** のも **育った** のも[京都]{﹅・﹅}なんだ。  
>  _４ｆ._ **生まれた** のも **育った** のも[京都]{﹅・﹅}なんです。  
>  _４ｇ._ **生まれた** のも **育った** のも[京都]{﹅・﹅}なんですよ。

Since the exact meaning of のだ depends on context, I've provided no explanation
here―that could, of course, be the subject of another question.

And that's it! For more explanation of cleft sentences, see Martin's 1975
_Reference Grammar of Japanese_ , p.863-869. For more explanation of English
clefts, see Huddleston & Pullum's 2002 _Cambridge Grammar of the English
Language_ , p.1414-1427.
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