Shukkeien Garden: fees, hours and its history

Shukkeien Garden costs 350 yen for adults and is free for high school students and younger. It opens at 9:00 and closes at 18:00 from mid-March to mid-September and at 17:00 the rest of the year. The garden was laid out in 1620 for the Asano lords of Hiroshima and stands about 1.3 km from the Atomic Bomb Dome. The bombing on 6 August 1945 destroyed every building in it except the stone bridge.

Fees and hours

Checked October 2026, from Shukkeien’s official guide page:

Ticket	Price
Adult	350 yen (groups of 20 or more: 250 yen)
University student	150 yen (group: 100 yen)
High school student and younger	Free
Aged 65 and over (with proof of age)	Free
Combined with the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum	660 yen adult, 350 yen university

Season	Hours	Last entry
16 March to 15 September	9:00 to 18:00	17:30
16 September to 15 March	9:00 to 17:00	16:30

The garden closes from 29 to 31 December. Entry is free for everyone on Greenery Day (4 May) and Culture Day (3 November). Older guides quote 260 yen; that price is out of date.

What the garden is

Shukkeien means roughly “shrunken scenery garden”. It is a stroll garden: you follow a path around a central pond, Takuei Pond, and the views change as you go. The pond holds 14 islands, seven on each side of an arched stone bridge, and tea houses, small bridges and arbours sit around its shore.

Ueda Soko, a senior retainer of the Asano family and a tea master, built it in 1620 as a villa garden for Asano Nagaakira, the first lord of the Hiroshima domain. It was first called “Sensui” or “Sentei”. The present name came later, from a poem the second lord asked for. A fire in 1758 destroyed many of its buildings, and a long rebuilding began in 1783. In 1940 the Asano family gave the garden to Hiroshima Prefecture, and it was designated a National Scenic Beauty the same year.

Shukkeien in 1945

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 left the garden in ruins. Japan’s Tourism Agency records that every structure was destroyed except the stone bridge. Many injured people fled into the garden and died there, according to the Hiroshima Culture site.

Photographs taken afterwards showed that bodies had been buried in makeshift graves in the garden. A memorial to the victims of the bombing now stands near the river on the garden’s eastern side.

Restoration began in 1949 and took until 1974. The tea houses and pavilions you see today were rebuilt after the war.

The A-bombed trees

Three trees in Shukkeien are on the City of Hiroshima’s register of A-bombed trees, all 1,370 m from the hypocentre:

Tree	Notes
Ginkgo	Named in the Tourism Agency’s description of the garden
Japanese black pine	Near the river on the east side; the Tourism Agency calls it the tallest of the surviving trees
Muku tree	Also on the city’s register

They survived the bombing and the fires that followed. If you have seen the A-bombed trees in the Peace Memorial Park, these are part of the same story.

How long to stay

Allow 45 minutes to an hour to walk once around the pond at an easy pace. The garden suits a quiet hour after the Peace Memorial Museum. Hiroshima Castle is about 800 m to the north-west, so you can join the castle grounds, Shukkeien and the Peace Park in one half-day.

The bike tour picked above rides to the Peace Park and the Dome first and then on to the castle grounds and Shukkeien, with garden entry included.

Getting there

Checked October 2026, from Shukkeien’s access page:

From	How
Hiroshima Station	Tram 1, 2 or 6, change at Hatchobori to the Hakushima line, get off at Shukkeien-mae; the entrance is by the stop
Hiroshima Station (Shinkansen exit)	Bus to Kenritsu Bijutsukan-mae (Shukkeien-mae)
Atomic Bomb Dome	About 1.3 km in a straight line; walk or take the tram via Hatchobori
By car	Garden car park: 400 yen first hour, 200 yen per 30 minutes after

For more ideas nearby, see things to do in Hiroshima or the Hiroshima itinerary.