Hiroshima, city (1990 pop. 1,085,705), capital of Hiroshima prefecture, SW Honshu, Japan, on Hiroshima Bay. It is an important commercial and industrial center manufacturing trucks, ships, automobiles, steel, rubber, furniture, and canned foods. The city is also a market for agricultural and marine products. Founded c.1594 as a castle city on the Ota River delta, Hiroshima is divided by the river's seven mouths into six islands. After 1868, Hiroshima's port, Ujina, was enlarged, and rail lines were built to link it with Kobe and Shimonoseki. Hiroshima was the target (Aug. 6, 1945) of the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a populated area; almost 130,000 people were killed, injured, or missing, and 90% of the city was leveled. Much of the city has been reconstructed, but a gutted section has been set aside as a "Peace City" to illustrate the effects of an atomic bomb. The Peace Memorial Museum is there. Since 1955 an annual world conference against nuclear weapons has met in Hiroshima. Hiroshima prefecture (1990 pop. 2,861,699), 3,258 sq mi (8,438 sq km), is generally mountainous, with fertile valleys. Rice and oranges are grown extensively, cattle are raised, textiles are manufactured, and shipyards are plentiful. Hiroshima, Kure, and Onomichi are among the important cities of Japan.

City (pop., 2002 est.: 1,113,786), southwestern Honshu, Japan. Founded as a castle town in the 16th century, it was from 1868 a military centre. In 1945 it became the first city ever to be struck by an atomic bomb, dropped by the U.S. in the last days of World War II. Rebuilding began in 1950, and Hiroshima is now the largest industrial city in the region. It has become a spiritual centre of the peace movement to ban nuclear weapons; Peace Memorial Park is dedicated to those killed by the bomb, and Atomic Bomb Dome is the ruin of the only building to survive the blast.

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