The Nanjing Botanical Garden Mem. Sun Yat-Sen is the first national botanical garden established in 1929 in China. The original name was 'Botanical Garden Memorial Sun Yat-Sen', which was dedicated to the memory of Mr. Sun Yat-Sen, the pioneer of Chinese democratic revolution. In 1954, it was reconstructed renamed as Nanjing Botanical Garden Mem. Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese Academy of Science.
The garden is located at the eastern suburb, a National Scenic Area. With the Purple Mountain behind and the Qian Lake in front, the garden lies beside of the ancient city wall of Ming Dynasty nearby the famous Zhongshan Tomb . The total area of the garden is 1.86 km². With luxuriant vegetation, lawns, hills and lakes. It is both a beautiful scenic spot and a plant kingdom.
AS one of the four major botanical gardens in China, Nanjing Botanical Garden has now turned into a well-known botanical garden with beautiful landscape and comprehensive functions including display, education and scientific research. As a research center on central and northern subtropical floras of China, the garden has a living collection of about 3000 taxa belonging to 913 genera of 188 families. The Herbarium contained a total amount of 700,000 sheets of specimens. There are five research departments: Ornamental Plant Research Center, Medicinal Plant Research Center, Plant Information Center, Key Laboratory of Plant Ex-situ Conservation of Jiangsu Province and Herbarium. Ten featured gardens (sections) have been constructed and opened.
So far, the garden has set up an exchange program of seeds, plants, specimens and books with over six hundred organizations of more than sixty countries in the world. The sister relationship of botanical gardens was established with Missouri Botanical Garden, USA, which is the first one in China. Friendly relationships with UBC Botanical Garden in Canada and the Botanical Garden, University of Tokyo, Japan have been set up. The garden is now a member of IUCN Threatened Plant Committee, Botanical Garden Conservation International.
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