Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden

#japan Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, located in Shinjuku and Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, is a large park and garden that was originally a residence of the Naitō family in the Edo period1. It is now a national park under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Environment. The garden is 58.3 ha (144 acres) in size and has a circumference of 3.5 km. It blends three distinct styles: Formal Garden, Landscape Garden, and Japanese Traditional Garden, making it one of the most important gardens from the Meiji era. The oldest part of Shinjuku Gyoen is a traditional Japanese landscape garden featuring large ponds dotted with islands and bridges. Well-manicured shrubs and trees surround the water together with several pavilions and the Kyu Goryotei (also called the Taiwan Pavilion), which was built on the occasion of the wedding of the Showa Emperor. The park’s other main gardens include a symmetrically arranged, formal French garden, and an English landscape garden featuring wide, open lawns surrounded by flowering cherry trees. The rest of the park consists of forested areas, lawns, and several structures including a restaurant, an information center, and an art gallery. There is also a beautiful greenhouse with many tropical and subtropical flowers. Shinjuku Gyoen is home to a large number of cherry trees of more than a dozen different varieties. From late March to early April, more than 400 somei yoshino trees blossom around the English garden, turning the lawns into one of Tokyo’s most popular and pleasant hanami spots. In addition, the park has numerous early and late blooming cherry trees which provide an extended cherry blossom viewing season for those who miss the main season. Shinjuku Gyoen is also nice to visit during autumn when the leaves change. There are a lot of different types of trees that change colors around the park, however, the maple trees are particularly beautiful and can be seen in large numbers around the Japanese garden and Momijiyama (“maple mountain”) on the park’s eastern side.