Why hiroshima?

From simple Googling:
“Even if we hadn’t of dropped the atomic bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would still have been targets for attack. This is because Hiroshima was a large industrial city that contained the 2nd Japanese Army Headquarters, which was in charge of all the defense systems in Southern Japan; Hiroshima also had communication centers for armies, storage points, and troop assemblies. Small industial plants were also in the outskirts of the city. As for Nagasaki, it was the largest fully operational sea port in Southern Japan, which produced ships, equipment, and relief supplies. There is much other information that can be explained about the reality of dropping the bomb on Japan and this was one ‘chunk’ of information.”

By the way, just to prove a point, I found that by googling:

Why did we bomb Hiroshima?

I believe that Nagasaki was actually the primary target but the cloud cover on August 6 was so great over that city that they decided on the second site, Hiroshima, to drop “Little Boy.” Of course just three days later they dropped “Fat Man” on Nagasaki.

Because if Japan was invaded, prefecture to prefecture, city to city, up to 1,000,000 Americans, 500,000 Russians, 50,000 Australian, 35,000 Canadians, and 100,000 British men were projected as casualties, in addition to over 6–9,000,000 Japanese.

Hirohito and his generals made the call there, had they surrendered, the bombs would never have been dropped, had the bombs never been dropped, no Hiroshima/Nagasaki. No Hiroshima/Nagasaki, no debate. If an invasion..Kamikazi’s all throughout Japan…men, women, and children encouraged to be ‘human bombs’... would have made Iraq seem like a playground…

Also because the places had for the most part been untouched by other forms of warfare. Dropping the bomb there would allow the scientists and military leaders to determine the strength and effects of the bomb itself.
Hiroshima was chosen as a target also because it had mountains around it that would help concentrate the effects of the bomb on the city.
The bombs were dropped in order to get Japan to surrender. In the minds of the people who dropped the bombs, the more damage the better. They wanted the full force of the bombs to be seen.

another note.
Many people always ask, why didn’t we just bomb tokyo. a few reasons. The main being that they didn’t want to kill all the government officials at the top in thoughts that a leaderless Japan would actually make the war drag on for many more years. They thought if Japan didn’t have a centralized leader the entire country would split up into many factions fighting themselves and the allies.
Also, for the amount of people in Tokyo, it didn’t really have a large amount of industrial or maritime prowess. Hiroshima and Nagasake were very very important strategic points to Japan. Nagasake was simular to San Fransisco in that both were the starting point for most Naval transports to the front lines and produced a fair amount of naval weaponry. Hiroshima was duely, very simular to Detroit of the time in that both were very important and large industrial hubs, they produced everything from tanks to bullets.
Tokyo would have caused more problems than it solved.

Supposedly to bring WWII to an end & reduce the casualty level of the allies. Japan was given the option to surrender (before the bombs were dropped), but they choose to continue the war.

I think a few posters missed the actual gist of the question. I don’t think he meant semantically why did we drop it… I think he meant why did we choose that and not something else.

Fun side note, A large portion of the Japanese army actually revolted a few days after the first bomb was dropped. They knew the emperor was going to surrender and they refused to give up. They probably would’ve gotten away with it and dragged the war on for who knows how much longer, had they not chosen the day the second bomb was dropped to stage their revolt.

@Allie ‘s answer is correct. They wanted a city that hadn’t seen much bombing so they could determine how much damage this one bomb caused.