Hiroshima Castle’s keep is shut. The castle’s own site states that the keep closed in March 2026 over deterioration of its concrete and ageing of its equipment, and that the exterior can still be looked at. The restored buildings of the ninomaru, the museum shop and the sannomaru area stay open, and the ninomaru costs nothing to enter.
The keep closed in March 2026, and the four restored ninomaru buildings did not
The notice on the castle’s front page is short. The keep closed on safety grounds, the reasons given are deterioration of the concrete and ageing of the building’s equipment, and viewing the outside is still possible. The front page sets no reopening date. The castle’s FAQ page answers two questions about the keep’s future and is more specific: it states that there is no plan at present to demolish the keep and that the exterior can go on being viewed, and that Hiroshima City is carrying out examination and investigation into restoring the keep, that this is at a basic stage, that more specialist work will follow and that a policy will be decided on those results. No date is attached to any of it.
What remains open is the ninomaru. The castle describes the restored ninomaru structures as four parts, and names them: the omotegomon gate, the hira-yagura turret, the tamon-yagura turret and the taiko-yagura turret. The interiors are timber, and the restoration ran from 1991 to 1994. Because the interiors are timber, the castle asks visitors to take their shoes off before going in, sets out a shoe rack at the entrance and hands out plastic bags at the desk for anyone who would rather carry their shoes; it states that it takes no responsibility for shoes mixed up or lost.
Admission to the ninomaru is free, and the door closes half an hour before the building does
The ninomaru restored buildings open 9:00 to 17:30 from April to September and 9:00 to 16:30 from October to March. Last entry in both periods is thirty minutes before closing, and the information page prints those deadlines itself as 17:00 and 16:00. Admission is free. The closed days printed on the park information page are 8 December and 29 to 31 December, each given with its 2026 weekday. The FAQ page of the same site answers the same question with a shorter span, 29 to 30 December, and says the ninomaru closes over the new year. Two pages of one operator print two different sets of closing dates.
The museum shop keeps its own hours, which are narrower at both ends: 9:30 to 17:00 from April to September and 9:30 to 16:00 from October to March. The shop page also carries a dated exception, 9:30 to 19:30 on 25 and 26 September, which was still printed there when the page was read in late September 2026.
The flat 240 yen covers the Miyajima line, and one payment method is charged differently there
Hiroshima’s trams are run by Hiroshima Electric Railway. Its own page on how to ride states, in one line, that the fare is a flat fare across every line, city lines and the Miyajima line included, and that the adult fare is 240 yen and the child fare 120 yen. The note directly beneath it carves out one case: pay within the Miyajima line with MOBIRY DAYS and the MOBIRY DAYS fare applies instead of the flat one.
The MOBIRY DAYS fare page it links to puts figures on that carve-out. It states that within Miyajima line sections MOBIRY DAYS discounts further than the flat rate discount of up to ten per cent, and it works three cases: Hiroden-nishihiroshima to Furue is 240 yen in cash and 150 yen on MOBIRY DAYS, while Furue to Fukushima-cho comes to 220 yen on MOBIRY DAYS because there the MOBIRY DAYS fare does not apply and the flat rate discount does. What the page on how to ride sets out separately is a transfer scheme: at designated transfer stops a passenger may change trams and be charged a through fare from the boarding stop to the destination, and holders of MOBIRY DAYS, a transport IC card or WAON additionally get a re-boarding service on the city lines. The page adds three further rules that are unambiguous: the child fare is half the adult fare with the remainder rounded up to the nearest 10 yen, up to three infants travel free per paying adult or child, and the disability fare is half the adult fare, with anyone to whom the carer discount applies travelling free and any remainder under 10 yen rounded up. It also states that the separate MOBIRY DAYS fare applies on the Miyajima line only when the whole fare is paid that way; pay part of it in cash and the MOBIRY DAYS fare does not apply.
The change machine on board does not take the new 500 yen coin
Fares on the tram are paid when leaving, not when boarding. Cash passengers are asked to put the exact amount into the farebox, and the page states that a change machine sits beside the farebox for anyone who does not have it. That machine does not accept the new 500 yen coin, though it does accept new banknotes; the page asks anyone holding a new 500 yen coin to speak to the crew instead.
Which door you may leave by depends on how you pay. Cash passengers use the door where the crew member is, and on an articulated car they may also use the rearmost door on the left in the direction of travel. A single adult paying with MOBIRY DAYS, a transport IC card or WAON may leave by any door. Anyone paying a child or disability fare, or paying for more than one person, is asked to come to the crew member’s door. The fleet has cars with two doors and cars with four, and trams stop near the front end of the stop.
The Peace Memorial Museum opens at 7:30, and the first hour needs an exhibition booking
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum opens earlier than the castle or the garden, and its opening hours change four times a year. It also gates two windows of the day behind an online reservation for the permanent exhibition: the 7:30 to 8:30 hour every morning, and a closing hour whose timing moves with the season.
| Period | Building hours | Evening window needing an online booking |
|---|---|---|
| March to July | 7:30 to 19:00 | 17:30 to 18:30 |
| August | 7:30 to 20:00 | 18:30 to 19:30 |
| 5 and 6 August | closes at 21:00 | until 20:30 |
| September to November | 7:30 to 19:00 | 17:30 to 18:30 |
| December to February | 7:30 to 18:00 | 16:30 to 17:30 |
The museum’s closed days are 30 and 31 December, plus an exhibition changeover in mid-February; the reference library inside it closes over a longer stretch, 29 December to 1 January. The museum states that opening hours may change and that any change is posted in the notices on its front page, so the table above is what the page said in September 2026 rather than a fixed rule.
Three practical rules sit on the same page. There is no general car park inside the Peace Memorial Park, and the park has been entirely non-smoking since 1 April 2018, with the smoking area placed on the south side of the East Building across Peace Boulevard. Coin lockers are on the first floor of the East Building.
Twenty high school students enter the museum free while thirty adults still pay 160 yen each
Admission to the permanent exhibition is 200 yen for adults, meaning university students and above, and 100 yen for high school students. Junior high school pupils and younger enter free. Both groups have a group rate, and the two rates do not work the same way. Thirty or more adults pay 160 yen a head. Twenty or more high school students pay nothing at all.
The page lists further cases in which the fee is waived or reduced. Pre-school children, primary pupils and junior high pupils are free. High school students are free on Saturdays, except on public holidays and during the spring, summer and winter school breaks. Holders of the atomic bomb survivors’ disability badge, a physical disability certificate, a rehabilitation certificate, a mental health and welfare certificate, a war wounded certificate, a specified medical expense certificate for a designated intractable disease or a certificate for a specified chronic paediatric disease enter free, and so does a carer accompanying them; the museum states that a certificate shown in a smartphone app is treated as the certificate itself. Anyone who can show official proof of being 65 or over pays 100 yen. School parties visiting as peace study, and participants in peace study run by a local authority, are free on prior application.
The prefectural garden lets the over 65s in free, and the city museum charges them 100 yen
Shukkeien is run as part of the prefectural art museum complex, and it treats age differently from the city’s museum. At Shukkeien, high school students and under, and anyone aged 65 or over, enter free; the garden asks the over 65s for official proof of age. At the Peace Memorial Museum, the over 65s pay 100 yen. The two figures come from two different operators, and neither page explains the other.
| Site | Adult, one person | Adult group | Aged 65 and over | High school | Junior high and under |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peace Memorial Museum permanent exhibition | 200 yen | 160 yen at 30 or more | 100 yen | 100 yen, free at 20 or more | Free |
| Shukkeien, garden only | 350 yen | 250 yen at 20 or more | Free | Free | Free |
| Hiroshima Castle ninomaru restored buildings | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free |
Shukkeien prices university students separately at 150 yen, or 100 yen in a group of 20 or more, and sells a combined garden and art museum ticket at 660 yen for adults and 350 yen for university students. Entry to the garden is free on two dates, 4 May and 3 November. Opening is 9:00 to 18:00 from 16 March to 15 September with last entry at 17:30, and 9:00 to 17:00 from 16 September to 15 March with last entry at 16:30. The garden closes 29 to 31 December. Its car park charges 400 yen for the first hour and then 200 yen per thirty minutes for a car, and 800 yen then 400 yen for a coach.
The garden prints a reduction list beyond the age rule. Free entry also covers holders of a physical disability certificate, a war wounded certificate, a rehabilitation certificate or a mental health and welfare certificate, and a person assisting any of them, with those certificates limited to ones issued by a Japanese local authority. The document has to be shown at the desk before entry and a spoken claim is not accepted; a party of 20 or more entering under the reduction may hand in a group reduction form rather than have each person produce proof. Holders of those four certificates who drive themselves in, or ride in a car driven by their carer, also have the car park charge waived.
Six months of the year carry a snow day figure, and six carry none
The Meteorological Agency’s normals for the Hiroshima station, all nineteen columns of which cover 1991 to 2020 over thirty years of record, give a snow day figure above zero in six months and 0.0 in the other six. The six with snow days are January at 12.0 days, February at 9.5, March at 4.3, April at 0.1, November at 0.2 and December at 7.6. May through October are all 0.0.
The total depth of snowfall normal is 3 cm in January, 3 cm in February, 0 cm in March and 2 cm in December, and the deepest snow cover normal is 3 cm in January, 3 cm in February, 0 cm in March and 2 cm in December. The eight months from April to November carry no figure at all in either of those columns.
January is the coldest month on all three temperature columns, so the answer does not depend on which column is read. January’s mean is 5.4C against February’s 6.2C, January’s daily maximum is 9.9C against 10.9C, and January’s daily minimum is 2.0C against 2.4C. Rain is heaviest in July at 279.8 mm and lightest in January at 46.2 mm, and the annual precipitation normal is 1,572.2 mm. Sunshine runs to 2,033.1 hours a year.
For the island across the bay, opening times on the approach street are set shop by shop rather than centrally; we have written those up separately in Miyajima Omotesando shopping street opening times.
Sources Checked
Hiroshima Castle official site, front page
Confirmed that the keep closed in March 2026 over deterioration of the concrete and ageing of equipment with safety in mind, that viewing the exterior is possible, that the ninomaru restored buildings, the ninomaru museum shop and the sannomaru area remain usable, that the ninomaru closed days are 8 December and 29 to 31 December, that the ninomaru restored buildings open 9:00 to 17:30 April to September and 9:00 to 16:30 October to March with entry until thirty minutes before closing and free admission, and that the museum shop runs 9:30 to 17:00 April to September and 9:30 to 16:00 October to March with a 9:30 to 19:30 exception on 25 and 26 September.
https://www.rijo-castle.jp/
Hiroshima Castle, park information page
Confirmed that the ninomaru restored buildings are the omotegomon, hira-yagura, tamon-yagura and taiko-yagura, that the interiors are timber and were restored across Heisei 3 to 6, that admission is free, that hours are 9:00 to 17:30 April to September with entry to 17:00 and 9:00 to 16:30 October to March with entry to 16:00, that the closed days are 8 December and 29 to 31 December, and that shoes are removed at the entrance with a shoe rack provided, plastic bags available at the desk and no responsibility taken for shoes mixed up, lost or stolen.
https://hiroshimacastle.jp/information
Hiroshima Castle, museum shop page
Confirmed the shop hours of 9:30 to 17:00 April to September and 9:30 to 16:00 October to March, and the dated exception of 9:30 to 19:30 on 25 and 26 September, read in late September 2026.
https://hiroshimacastle.jp/about/shop
Hiroshima Castle, frequently asked questions page
Confirmed that there is no plan at present to demolish the keep and that its exterior can still be viewed, that Hiroshima City is examining and investigating restoration of the keep at a basic stage with more specialist work to follow and a policy to be decided on the results, and that this page answers the closed day question as 29 to 30 December with the ninomaru closed over the new year.
https://hiroshimacastle.jp/faq
Hiroshima Electric Railway, how to ride the tram
Confirmed that the page states a flat fare across all lines including the city lines and the Miyajima line at 240 yen adult and 120 yen child, that using MOBIRY DAYS within the Miyajima line gives the MOBIRY DAYS fare instead, that the MOBIRY DAYS fare does not apply when part of the fare is paid in cash, that the child fare is half the adult fare rounded up to the nearest 10 yen, that up to three infants travel free per paying adult or child, that the disability fare is half the adult fare with a qualifying carer free, that a transfer scheme at designated transfer stops charges a through fare from boarding stop to destination with a city line re-boarding service for MOBIRY DAYS, transport IC card and WAON holders, that fares are paid on leaving, that the on-board change machine does not accept the new 500 yen coin but does accept new banknotes, that cash passengers leave by the crew member’s door with the rear left door also usable on articulated cars, and that the fleet includes two-door and four-door cars.
https://www.hiroden.co.jp/train/use/index.html
Hiroshima Electric Railway, MOBIRY DAYS fare
Confirmed that within Miyajima line sections MOBIRY DAYS discounts beyond the flat rate discount of up to ten per cent, that Hiroden-nishihiroshima to Furue is 240 yen against a 150 yen MOBIRY DAYS fare and 240 yen in cash, and that Furue to Fukushima-cho is 220 yen on MOBIRY DAYS because the MOBIRY DAYS fare does not apply and only the flat rate discount does.
https://www.hiroden.co.jp/discount/days-fare.html
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, opening information page
Confirmed the seasonal hours of 7:30 to 19:00 for March to July, 7:30 to 20:00 for August with a 21:00 close on 5 and 6 August, 7:30 to 19:00 for September to November and 7:30 to 18:00 for December to February; the online reservation requirement for 7:30 to 8:30 and for the evening windows 17:30 to 18:30, 18:30 to 19:30 with 20:30 on 5 and 6 August, 17:30 to 18:30 and 16:30 to 17:30; closure on 30 and 31 December plus a mid-February exhibition changeover with the reference library closed 29 December to 1 January; admission of 200 yen for adults, 160 yen at 30 or more, 100 yen for high school students, free at 20 or more, free for junior high and under, 100 yen for those 65 and over on official proof, free for high school students on Saturdays outside public holidays and school breaks, the listed certificate holders and their carers free with app-displayed certificates accepted, free peace-study visits on prior application, no general car park in the park, the park fully non-smoking since 1 April 2018 with the smoking area south of the East Building across Peace Boulevard, and coin lockers on the first floor of the East Building.
https://hpmmuseum.jp/modules/info/index.php?action=PageView&page_id=2
Shukkeien, admission guide of the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum and Shukkeien
Confirmed opening of 9:00 to 18:00 from 16 March to 15 September with last entry 17:30 and 9:00 to 17:00 from 16 September to 15 March with last entry 16:30, closure 29 to 31 December, admission of 350 yen for adults and 250 yen in a group of 20 or more, 150 yen and 100 yen for university students, free for high school students and under and for those aged 65 and over on official proof, the combined garden and museum ticket at 660 yen and 350 yen, free entry on 4 May and 3 November, car park charges of 400 yen then 200 yen per thirty minutes for a car and 800 yen then 400 yen for a coach, and a reduction list giving free entry to holders of a physical disability, war wounded, rehabilitation or mental health and welfare certificate issued by a Japanese local authority and to their assistant, with proof required at the desk before entry, a group reduction form accepted for parties of 20 or more, and the car park charge waived for those certificate holders.
https://shukkeien.jp/guide/
Japan Meteorological Agency, climatological normals for Hiroshima station
Confirmed that all nineteen columns are stated for 1991 to 2020 with thirty years of record, the snow day normals of 12.0, 9.5, 4.3, 0.1, 0.2 and 7.6 days for January, February, March, April, November and December with 0.0 for May through October, the total snowfall depth normals of 3, 3, 0 and 2 cm for January, February, March and December, the deepest snow cover normals of 3, 3, 0 and 2 cm for January, February, March and December with no figure for April to November, the January and February temperature normals of 5.4C and 6.2C mean, 9.9C and 10.9C daily maximum and 2.0C and 2.4C daily minimum, precipitation of 279.8 mm in July, 46.2 mm in January and 1,572.2 mm for the year, and annual sunshine of 2,033.1 hours.
https://www.data.jma.go.jp/stats/etrn/view/nml_sfc_ym.php?prec_no=67&block_no=47765
Last updated: September 2026
