Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park: A Walk Through

Located in the heart of the city, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park stands at the intersection between radical loss and unimaginable suffering, but also astonishing forgiveness and hope for the future.

Peace Park is Hiroshima’s monument to the use of the first atomic bomb against a human population on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. It honors the 140,000 who were dead by December. It memorializes the lost city. It celebrates peace and boasts the city’s amazing revival. At the same time, it educates visitors about the horrors of nuclear weapons in the hope that the epitaph written on the Cenotaph for the Atomic Bomb Victims can be realized:

“Let all the souls here rest in peace; for we shall not repeat the evil.”

The Monuments & Symbolism

Walking through Peace Park is like walking through a cemetery, a war memorial, a museum and a sacred religious site all at once. The park’s 122,100 square meters (~30 acres) are dotted with museums, preserved buildings that endured the blast, funerary structures and a variety of monuments focused on the park’s central message of peace.

The Main Entrance

While most people arrive from Genbaku Dome-mae Station on the northern side of the park and move south, the rhetorical design of the park is meant to be experienced from the south moving north.

The park’s designer, Kenzo Tange, organized the key structures of the park along a central north-south axis, with the main entrance on the southern side of the park.

Tange expected people to arrive at the park along Heiwa Odori (Peace Boulevard), the tree- and peace monument-lined east-west road that cuts across the city.

(Joy Photo / Michael Farrell)

The Statue of Mother and Child in the Storm

From there, one comes to a wide courtyard facing the street. Here you encounter the Statue of Mother and Child in the Storm. A woman with one arm clutches a small child to her chest while she hunches over to help an older child get on her back.

The Fountain of Prayer & Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Behind the woman, the Fountain of Prayer sprays 11 tons of water per minute up to a height of 10 meters (~33 feet). Water is a common theme in the park for multiple reasons. One of the major intentions behind the water is tied to the thirst of the victims. Symbolically, the fountain offers victims something many desperately sought in their final moments. The intense heat of the bomb left countless people severely burned, dehydrated and pleading for water. After watching badly injured victims die soon after drinking, some survivors mistakenly came to believe the water itself had killed them and withheld it from the thirsty. Many later carried deep guilt over those decisions.

Beyond the fountain, the ribbed structure of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum spreads out before you. The museum is a great example of postwar Modernist Japanese architecture. Designed by Tange, the influence of Modernist architects like Le Corbusier can be seen in features like the concrete pillars (pilotis) that hold up the building. In the postwar period, many Japanese architects embraced Modernism as part of a broader national reconstruction effort tied to ideas of peace, internationalism and technological progress.

(Joy Photo / Michael Farrell)

Cenotaph for the Atomic Bomb Victims

Pass under the museum’s reinforced concrete pilotis and you come to a large lawn with a central path north along the main park axis. This path takes you to the Cenotaph for the Atomic Bomb Victims. The cenotaph operates like a gravestone for all the victims. Designed under Tange’s park plan, the cenotaph’s saddle-shaped arch evokes ancient Japanese funerary forms, particularly the house-shaped haniwa associated with Kofun-period tombs in the fifth century.

Under the Cenotaph is a stone chest that houses the 130 volumes that make up the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Victims Registry. The list includes American POWs, Koreans, Taiwanese and other non-Japanese residents present during the bomb. It contains 349,246 names. One volume is intentionally left blank for all the unknown victims.

Ceremonial Center

The lawn and cenotaph are the ceremonial heart of the park. This is where the city solemnly gathers every Aug. 6 to remember the bombing. It is also where visiting dignitaries pay their respects. For example, in 2019, Pope Francis prayed for the dead, listened to survivors and condemned nuclear weapons in a Peace Gathering at the cenotaph. In 2023, when Hiroshima hosted the Group of Seven (G7) Summit, the G7 leaders offered flowers and prayed at the cenotaph before planting cherry trees along the eastern side of the lawn.

(Joy Photo / Michael Farrell)

Pond of Peace & Flame of Peace

Looking through the arch of the Cenotaph, you’ll see the still waters of the Pond of Peace leading up to the Flame of Peace—symbols rich with meaning. In Japanese religious and funerary traditions, water symbolizes the dividing line between the living and the dead. It is also used for ritual purification before entering holy places. Consequently, the Pond of Peace can be interpreted as a ritual boundary between the land of the living and the dead while also providing purification for the souls forced to cross. The Flame of Peace, meanwhile, represents the threat of nuclear war. It is kept perpetually burning until global nuclear disarmament is achieved.

Atomic Bomb Dome

Lastly, looking beyond the pond and the flame, one sees the twisted ruin of the Atomic Bomb Dome preserved as it was just after the bomb exploded. Before the bomb, it was called the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall. Though clearly visible from the cenotaph, it lies on the other side of the Motoyasu River. The steel-frame and masonry building was designed by Czech architect Jan Letzel and built between 1914 and 1915. First called the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall, it was originally used to promote new commercial and industrial products.

For example, one of the most popular baked goods in Japan today is baumkuchen. You can find this German cake in most supermarkets, and it is commonly bought as a gift for special occasions. Karl Juchheim, the future founder of Kobe’s famous Juchheim Co., Ltd., introduced the sweet to Japan in 1919 at an expo held at Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall. In stark contrast, today’s ruin serves as a reminder of the devastating power of nuclear weapons.

Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims

To the right of the center axis, a memorial for the atomic bomb victims lies under the earth. Descend the stone stairs and move counterclockwise, as if backward through time, down a sloped passage mixed with the ground soil. Inside Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, visitors are invited to learn more about the victims and the terrible power of the atomic bomb while being given space to digest and pray.

At the very bottom, inside the Hall of Remembrance, one finds a 360-degree diorama of what Hiroshima looked like from the hypocenter right after the bomb. The image is made out of 140,000 tiles, each one representing one of the victims who died by the end of the year. Other facilities include a Special Exhibition Area, a library where you can read over 140,000 survivor memoirs and obituaries, and a wall display that continually rotates through portraits of the victims and their names.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Rest House

Just north of Memorial Hall lies another surviving structure from before the blast. Built in 1929, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Rest House was Taishoya Kimono Shop at the time of the bombing. It was restored and reopened in July 2020 as a tourist information center and rest area. Inside, one can find a gift shop, a café and a piano that survived the atomic bombing. Two major park tours also operate out of this building: a VR tour where people can see what the park looked like before the bomb as they explore the park, and a cycling tour that connects the park to atomic bomb sites around the wider city. There is also a museum display in the basement where the late Eizo Nomura, the closest known survivor to the hypocenter, survived the atomic blast. 

Children’s Monuments

(Joy Photo / Michael Farrell)

Children’s Peace Monument

Just to the left of the south-north line connecting the Atomic Bomb Dome to the Statue of Mother and Child in the Storm is the Children’s Peace Monument. It stands just across the road from the Flame of Peace.

On top of the monument, above a small bell tower, a little girl holds a large paper crane above her head. Flanking the figure, a boy and a girl fall to the sides with their hands held out as if to catch something. Under the bell tower, the Japanese inscription reads, “This is our cry, this is our prayer: for building peace in the world.”

The girl at the top represents Sadako Sasaki, a 12-year-old who died in 1955 from radiation-induced leukemia. Hoping for recovery, Sasaki followed a Japanese folk tradition that if you folded 1,000 paper cranes, you would be granted a wish. Sadly, despite completing more than 1,000 cranes, she passed away.

Today, paper cranes are folded by children across Japan and the world in honor of child victims like Sasaki. These cranes are displayed in glass cases behind the monument as a plea that no child should ever have to endure nuclear war. An estimated 10 million paper cranes are offered every year.

While visiting, you can also fold your own cranes and donate them to the case as a prayer for peace.

Memorial Tower Dedicated to Mobilized Students

On the route to the Atomic Bomb Dome, after crossing the Motoyasu Bridge, lies another memorial to children killed in the war. The Memorial Tower Dedicated to Mobilized Students lists the names of 6,874 students age 12 and older who died in the war both from the atomic bomb and from air raids across Japan. They died while mobilized by the government to fill vacant jobs as the country ran out of adults who could work.

According to city records, at the time of the atomic bombing, at least 9,111 children were deployed in the city demolishing buildings to make firebreaks in case of conventional bombing. Around 6,300 of the deployed students died in the blast.

Adjacent Monuments

Circle around to the west after visiting the Atomic Bomb Dome. Cross the T-shaped Aioi Bridge, the bomber’s original target, and enter the wooded side of the park to see the Clock Tower, ring the Peace Bell, pray for the dead at the Cenotaph for Korean Victims and the Atomic Bomb Memorial Burial Mound. This last monument contains the ashes of 70,000 unidentified victims who were discovered all across the city. Some have since been identified, currently leaving 67,566 individuals still unknown.

Before and After the Bomb

Before the atomic bombing, the area now known as Peace Memorial Park was known as Nakajima District. It was a lively and bustling place filled with homes, shopping, industry, clinics, restaurants, a theater, temples, government offices and more. It is estimated that 6,500 people lived in Nakajima at the time the atomic bomb exploded. At the time, the population of Hiroshima as a whole was estimated to be around 350,000 people.

On Aug. 6, 1949, the “Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law” was enacted, and the land that was Nakajima District was dedicated to become Peace Memorial Park.

Shortly after this, architect Kenzo Tange’s design for Peace Memorial Park was selected out of 145 proposals. His pivotal idea was aligning the museum, cenotaph and the Atomic Bomb Dome on a central axis. Construction began in the early 1950s and was completed April 1, 1954.

Over the decades, additional monuments were added by various groups seeking consolation, peace and the repose of the dead.

One of the most recent additions is a bust of Mahatma Gandhi donated by India in 2023. The bust can be found on the path down the eastern side of the Motoyasu River on the edge of the park.

(Joy Photo / Michael Farrell)

Beat the Crowds and the Heat

Peace Park receives over a million visitors every year. In 2025, Peace Memorial Museum, a part of the park grounds, broke records with 2,003,718 visitors in one fiscal year.

To skip the large crowds and enjoy the best weather, note that the park is busiest on weekends and during the week between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. This is also when the sun is especially intense in summertime.

Getting There

To experience the park as Tange imagined, you need to arrive at the southern entrance. This is not as easy on public transportation as taking the Hiroden tram from Hiroshima Station to Genbaku Dome-mae Station. But to experience the park as originally intended, it is worth the extra effort.

The easiest route to Peace Park’s main entrance is via the red Maple Loop (Meipuru-pu) bus. The tourist-focused bus leaves Hiroshima Station and arrives at “The Peace Memorial Park (Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum)” stop in 15 minutes. The basic fare is ¥240, and buses leave approximately every 15 minutes from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. You can read more about the Maple Loop and see its exact schedule on our transportation guide.

What to Do After

The park presents serious themes and evokes hard questions and emotions that take time to process. You can spend a whole day exploring and meditating in Peace Park. Some take two.

Here are some things you can do to decompress during your journey.

Get a traditional Japanese bento lunch at Kuroben, just a five-minute walk away, and eat it silently beside the river while listening to the sounds of nature. The Motoyasu River is lined with benches on both banks, giving visitors a place to sit and enjoy a light picnic—a perfect space to decompress in nature.

For those who prefer vegan or halal options, a block and a half east from the statue of Gandhi is Chidiya Kanak, one of the city’s most beloved Indian restaurants. You can order your food to go and eat it at the park or eat in at the restaurant. The gentle earth tones, rich wooden flooring and calming lighting make a relaxing atmosphere to enjoy a meal and contemplate.

If you need a break from the heaviness, have some fun finding souvenirs for the people you love on nearby Hondori, the city’s most famous covered shopping street. The street is lined with souvenir shops like Country Cat and lately has become a hot spot for gachapon shops.

Alternatively, blow off steam at Cafe Hybrid, a retro gaming café, or enjoy a yogurt frappe at Chichiyasu Parlor, a café built around the 140-year-old local yogurt brand.