Qinling National Botanical Garden

Zhouzhi County, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China

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The Qinling National Botanical Garden is the world's largest botanical garden, covering an impressive 639 square kilometers (247 square miles) in Zhouzhi County at the northern foot of the Qinling Mountains, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of Xi'an in Shaanxi Province, China.

Opened on September 27, 2017, after over two decades of preparation, it became China's first and only national-level botanical garden, serving as the country's "biological gene bank" with four main functions: species conservation, scientific research, public education, and ecotourism.

The garden spans an extraordinary elevation range from 460 to 3,000 meters (1,500 to 9,800 feet), creating five distinct landforms from north to south—plains, hills, low mountains, middle mountains, and high mountains—which makes it the botanical garden with the world's most diversified plants and clearest vegetation zones, hosting 1,641 species of wild plants and 164 species of animals including the rare "Four Treasures of Qinling": giant pandas, golden monkeys, takins, and crested ibises.

The garden features diverse vegetation including cypresses, sharp-toothed oaks, red birches, mulberries, orchids, gingko, and 3,839 total plant species native to the Qinling Mountains alongside rare plants from around the world, making it a haven for biodiversity and ecological protection. Visitors can access the garden via Huanshan Tour Bus No. 1 from the North Square of Big Wild Goose Pagoda (travel time about two hours, one-way ticket CNY 12) or by self-driving, with ticket prices of CNY 65 from March 16 to October 31 and CNY 45 from November 1 to March 15, and the best visiting time is late spring to early summer (May to mid-June) when visitors can also pick mulberries.