Why were Hiroshima and Nagasaki targeted rather than, say, Tokyo?

Because Tokyo wasn't much of a military target relatively speaking. It would've resulted in many more unnecessary civilian casualties. What Wage Slave said about selecting targets based on population density is simply untrue. "Important military installations"??? Uh......

Hiroshima was home to two Japanese Army group headquarters and a Marine headquarters, had huge military supply depots, and a big port. It was also surrounded by hills which would help amplify the blast. And they didn't consider it to be a good target for conventional incendiary bombing due to multiple rivers there.

Nagasaki was a major industrial city, with another huge port and dockyards that were largely responsible for constructing ships for the Japanese Navy.

Actually more civilians died during the NON-nuclear bombings of Tokyo than died during both nuclear strikes combined. In fact, in the report the targeting committee submitted they specifically said, "It was agreed that for the initial use of the weapon any small and strictly military objective should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage in order to avoid undue risks of the weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb." They obviously were not targeting non-military population dense areas as Wage Slave asserts. It also shows that had they continued having to drop nuclear bombs they would've started selecting smaller, strictly military, targets that weren't in cities.

And there were backup targets. Kokura was actually the alternate for Hiroshima, had Hiroshima been clouded in that day. Kokura was one of the largest arsenals in Japan. Unlike the other targets which are just named as cities in the targeting committee's report they refer to it as the "Kokura Arsenal". And Kokura was actually the primary target for the Nagasaki bomb. But it was clouded in the day that bomb was dropped, that's why it went to Nagasaki. They actually flew over Kokura first and then diverted to Nagasaki low on fuel. And in fact one of the original cities considered was Kyoto. Ultimately they dropped it from the list because it is important in the Japanese religion.

According to records that were kept by the committee that was responsible for picking the targets there were 3 main criteria. 1) They had to be "important" (ie military) targets at least 3 miles in diameter in a large urban area. The point was to convince the Japanese to surrender, so bombing a tiny little village in the mountains would be pointless. And since they didn't exactly have laser guidance systems they needed a big target so they wouldn't miss. Or at least miss enough that the target wouldn't be destroyed (see point 2). And anything 3 miles in diameter is pretty much going to be a city..... 2) They had to be capable of being effectively damaged by the blast (Tokyo was probably too big based on that alone). 3) They had to be unlikely to be bombed conventionally before the nuclear bombs were scheduled to be dropped (they wanted to see the effects of the weapons, so hitting an already bombed out city would be pointless. Tokyo had been bombed heavily already.). The bombing of Japan wasn't like the wide spread day and night pounding of Germany that had gone on for YEARS. We had only recently been able to even reach Japan with bombers, and they had to go a long way to get there. So many parts of it, even prime military targets like Hiroshima, Kokura, and Nagasaki, had gone unscathed. In fact from what I've been able to determine the very first target that was ever considered for nuclear attack (in 1943 before the bombs were even close to being ready) was a concentration of Japanese Navy ships in the Harbor of Truk. This is in New Guinea, nowhere near Japan, much less a city.

As to why you see more press about Hiroshima than Nagasaki, because it was first. Who was the 2nd person to break the sound barrier? Who was the second person in space? Etc.

Civilians? There weren't any Japanese civilians as of 1944, a year before the atomic bombings.

That's because the Japanese government drafted all Japanese - including women & children - and began training them to fight the coming Allied invasion of Japan.

The government was so fanatical that it ordered all Japanese to die fighting rather than surrender.

Why those cities? Because they were valid targets due to Japanese military activity.

Hiroshima was where the headquarters responsible for the defence of southern Japan was located and Nagasaki was an important hub for producing Japanese weapons and supplies and more.

Also, unlike most other Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both still relatively intact.

More than six dozen Japanese cities were basically wastelands flatted by Allied bombing.

Tokyo, for example, was basically a burnt-out parking lot after being firebombed in March 1945.

The Allies wanted Japan to surrender.

Nuking Tokyo might not have shocked them into doing that.

Instead, they might have gotten so angry over their capital being vaporized that they'd keep on fighting.

Tokyo was not targeted for a few reasons. Number one is the emperor of Japan lived close by. And no one else could have told their Army to stand down. Number two is the cultural and civilian treasures in that city. Number three is because of the population. There were over 5 million people living in Tokyo at the time. The U.S. didn't want to kill that many civilians.

And yes, civilian populations were targeted. THE ENTIRE WAR. There are NO RULES in war. Geneva Convention be dammed.

Hiroshima was a major industrial city.

Nagasaki was a resort city basically for the Japanese upper classes, including families of senior Japanese officers.

The idea was to hit them hard but taking out Tokyo would have meant chaos and disorder (no one to authorize surrender).

Hiroshima was targeted because it was a relatively undamaged city and the US military wanted a clear before and after effects report. Japan was running out of undamaged cities. Nagasaki was a secondary target, not a primary choice.

Much of Tokyo was destroyed during Operation Meeting house. They needed to use the A bombs on two cities that weren't touched to see how much damage they would do also they were legitimate military targets.

see how destruction of Berlin did not help in bringing Hitler down.

anyways, there was no Tokyo to speak about after the firebombing raids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo

also, you might be missing the little fact that Kyoto was the capital of imperial Japan, not Tokyo. i blame the US education system

(then again, missing the intended target by 300+ kilometers was really no issue in the WWII USAAF.. as long as the bombs were falling on the right (enemy) side.. Prague and PIlsen both were bombed "by accident" in late April 45)

edit>thanks for correction, CG-23. the nonexistent tokyo (including the imperial palace premises) is still applicable i guess

Good "bombing" conditions were fairly rare over Tokyo, and even more rare to last two consecutive days.

The selection of the cities was such that maximum damage would be done, so they wanted cities that were densely populated, buildings close together so fires would spread, etc. Hiroshima had not been heavily bombed yet as many other Japanese cities had been, and they also had a large reserve of military personnel and equipment that had not been subjected to much damage, making it an attractive target.

I suppose the reason you hear about Hiroshima more is that Nagasaki was the 2nd attack, and therefore not nearly as momentous, even if there have only been 2 of them in history.

Ed:

They did target densely populated areas, but the justification was that a mainland invasion of Japan would've resulted in millions more civilians dead. It was a "lesser of two evils" choice.

Tokyo has no military value. Read your history dude.

Most of the war manufacturing had been moved to these areas so they were of military importance