“Gokoku” shrines are Shinto shrines designated as places of worship for those who have died in war. Originally constructed in 1868 to commemorate the Hiroshima-han victims of the Boshin War, Hiroshima Gokoku-jinja Shrine now enshrines 92,700 souls; the soldiers from the former Aki-no-kuni (now western Hiroshima Prefecture) who died in Japan’s wars up until the start of the Great East Asian War (as the 2nd World War post Pearl Harbor is known in Japan) and some 10,000 workers and volunteer corps stationed in Hiroshima who lost their lives to the A-Bomb.
The shrine is now located next to Hiroshima Castle.
