Yamato Museum (Kure Maritime Museum)

The model in the atrium is 26.3 meters long, a one-tenth copy of the battleship Yamato, which was built at the Kure Naval Arsenal and completed in 1941. It sank south of Kyushu in 1945 with most of its crew. The museum opened in 2005 to tell Kure's story as a naval port and shipbuilding town, from the naval base set up in 1889 through the war years to the postwar shipyards. It closed in February 2025 for its first big renovation and reopened on 23 April 2026. The model stayed, but its details were corrected using recent underwater surveys of the wreck: the chrysanthemum crest on the bow is now about 1 meter across instead of the 1.5 meters once assumed, and some gun mounts were moved. The third-floor science and technology gallery was redone too, with two wartime aircraft engines, a Homare and a Kasei, and a triple-expansion steam engine from a Meiji-era torpedo boat. Admission is 1,000 yen, or 500 yen for Kure residents. The museum's own car park is small and the museum asks visitors to come by public transport; Kure Station is only about 500 meters away. Next door stands the JMSDF Kure Museum, known locally as Tetsu no Kujira-kan.