Hydration structures of barium ion (Ba2+) were studied by ab initio molecular dynamics using the strongly constrained and appropriately normed (SCAN) meta-generalized gradient approximation (GGA) exchange-correlation (XC) functional and extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy, which showed consistent results for the static properties. The result obtained with SCAN was compared with these with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) and Becke-Lee-Yang-Parr (BLYP) GGA XC functionals and the functionals with the Grimme's dispersion correction (PBE-D3 and BLYP-D3). The comparison revealed the importance of the dispersion interaction for the static and dynamic properties of the Ba2+ hydration structures.