---
node: spot_hiroshima_shukkei_en
type: spot
slug: shukkei_en
destination: dest_hiroshima
title: "Shukkei-en"
lead: "Shukkei-en is a garden of 1620 laid out for the lord of Hiroshima, its name meaning shrunken scenery: a valley, a lake and mountains compressed into a few hectares. It was destroyed by the atomic bomb and replanted from 1951."
published: 2026-08-12
updated: 2026-09-04
image_file: spot_hiroshima_shukkei_en.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shukkei-en,_Hiroshima,_Japan,_20240817_1232_4252.jpg"
image_author: "Jakub Hałun"
image_license: "CC BY 4.0"
---

## Overview

The garden survived as an idea rather than as a place — the bomb burned everything and hundreds of people who fled here died on the lawns, where a mass grave was later found during excavation. A single ginkgo, a eucalyptus and a few other trees lived through it and are marked; they are among the survivor trees, hibakujumoku, that the city catalogues. The restored garden follows the original plan with a path circling the pond and ten small bridges.

## Highlights

Walk the circuit clockwise, which is how the composition unfolds — each turn is designed to open a different view of the same pond. The tea house serves matcha overlooking the water for a few hundred yen. It is ten minutes on foot from the Peace Park and is the natural place to sit afterwards.