Hiroshima

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Cenotaph in Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima, Japan; Atomic Bomb Dome is visible through the arch.—Bob Glaze—Artstreet

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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