Explore Hiroshima

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum documents the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and its aftermath. Opened in 1955 in the Peace Memorial Park, its main building is by Kenzō Tange; the exhibits show belongings of the dead, photographs, survivors' testimonies and the effects of heat, blast and radiation.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park covers the area near the hypocentre of the atomic bomb of 6 August 1945, once the busy Nakajima district. Laid out to plans by Kenzō Tange and completed in 1955, it holds the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims, the Flame of Peace, the Children's Peace Monument and some 35 other memorials.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, known as the Atomic Bomb Dome, was built in 1915 as the Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall to a design by Czech architect Jan Letzel. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 exploded almost directly above it, killing everyone inside. The ruin is kept as it was left and is seen from outside.

The Hiroshima Museum of Art was opened in 1978 by the Hiroshima Bank in Chūō Park, near the castle. Its collection centres on French painting from Romanticism to the School of Paris, with works by Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh and Picasso, alongside Japanese Western-style painting; the galleries ring a domed central hall.

Hiroshima Castle was founded by Mōri Terumoto in the 1590s on the delta of the Ōta River. The keep, destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945 and rebuilt in concrete in 1958, closed in March 2026 because of its ageing structure and is seen from outside; the reconstructed gate, turrets and walls of the Ninomaru bailey remain open.

Shukkei-en is a Japanese landscape garden laid out from 1620 by the tea master Ueda Sōko for Asano Nagaakira, lord of Hiroshima. Paths circle a pond with small islands, bridges and tea houses, imitating scenery in miniature. The garden was destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945 and has since been restored.