Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture and the largest city in the region of western Honshu - the largest island of Japan. The city's name means "Broad Island" in Japanese. Hiroshima gained city status on April 1, 1889. On April 1, 1980, Hiroshima became a designated city. As of August 2016, the city had an estimated population of 1,196,274.
Hiroshima is best known as the first city in history to be targeted by a nuclear weapon when the US Air Force dropped a nuclear bomb on the city (and later on Nagasaki) at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, near the end of World War 2.
Pictured above is the only building that survived the bomb which is now the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. There is a very moving museum about the effects of the bomb on the population. Let's hope no one ever drops a nuclear weapon anywhere.
