Okinawa Peace Memorial Park

Okinawa Peace Memorial Park occupies the coastal bluffs at Mabuni, where organized Japanese resistance in the Battle of Okinawa ended in June 1945 after 82 days of fighting that killed an estimated 200,000 people, including a large share of Okinawa's civilian population. The park's central monument, the Cornerstone of Peace, unveiled in 1995, is composed of curved black granite walls inscribed with the names of every documented casualty of the battle — Okinawan civilians, Japanese soldiers, and American troops alike, without distinction of nationality or side. The adjoining Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum presents room-by-room exhibits chronicling the lead-up to the battle, its progression, and survivor testimony, offering one of the most direct and unflinching accounts of the battle's civilian toll available anywhere. The surrounding grounds also contain memorials erected by nearly every Japanese prefecture whose soldiers died in the battle, alongside a hilltop observation point overlooking the sea where the fighting reached its final, desperate stages.