Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Created to symbolize the need for everlasting peace, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (Hiroshima Heiwa Kinen Kōen) commemorates the many victims of the world’s first nuclear attack in August 1945. Located at the epicenter of the blast in what was once a bustling part of the city, the park includes a variety of important monuments, memorials, and museums relating to the events of that fateful day and its aftermath, and attracts more than a million visitors each year.

In addition to the grounds and gardens, with their colorful cherry blossoms, highlights include the Peace Memorial Museum, the Memorial Cenotaph, and the Flame of Peace, as well as perhaps the site’s best-known landmark, the Atom Bomb Dome. This much-photographed landmark comprises the ruins of the old Chamber of Industry and Commerce, which lay at the epicenter of the explosion.

Also of interest are the Children’s Peace Monument with its sculptures of a young girl holding a paper bird, and the Monument to the Victims of the Atomic Bomb, a concrete arch through which the Atom Bomb Dome can be seen.