Jardín Botánico de Castilla-La Mancha

Spain, Spain

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Jardín Botánico de Castilla-La Mancha is a regional botanical garden and plant museum on the outskirts of Albacete, next to the La Pulgosa peri-urban park and greenway, designed to showcase and conserve the flora of Castilla-La Mancha in a single, accessible site.

Created in the 2000s (construction began around 2003 and it opened in 2010), it covers about 7–8 hectares and recreates more than 40 natural plant communities and around 30–40 “mini‑ecosystems” characteristic of the region—such as Mediterranean forests, steppes, wetlands and gypsum habitats—many of which are protected under European and regional nature laws.

The garden holds over 28,000 individual plants representing roughly 2,000–2,100 taxa, including about 200 local endemics and numerous threatened species, and focuses on ex situ conservation, ecological gardening and climate-change adaptation research, which has earned it ecological excellence certification and inclusion in international climate and botanic-garden networks.