Hefei Garden Expo Park - English version
Yesterday I talked about my experience with classic Chinese gardens, yuán. If you missed it, find the full article on this link. Today I want to tell you about a series of very special gardens that are mostly unknown to European tourists.
By Alessandra Ivaldi / 23.08.2026
We are located in Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province in eastern China. Although not a well-known tourist resort, the city offers many fascinating attractions. One of the most famous is Luogang, called Garden Expo Park in English.
A bit of history. In 2023 Hefei hosted the 14th edition of the International Garden Expo, a gigantic international exhibition on the theme of garden design and landscape architecture. Where to organize an event of this size? It was a daunting challenge even for China’s giant cities, but Hefei’s administration still managed to find a solution to the problem. A solution that even earned awards and recognition in the end!
The winning idea was to recover and convert the huge space occupied by the disused Luogang Airport, an area of 323 hectares. The project’s slogan was as follows: “Ecology First, Garden Expo for the People”. The Luogang became a highly admired example of “recycling” an abandoned urban space and converting it in an ecological way. In addition, it was also the first occasion on which a Garden Expo Park offered free admission to its visitors.
The beauties of Hefei Garden Expo Park. The Luogang covers a vast area, which today is almost entirely occupied by green spaces: a real “super lung” for the city of Hefei! The park is divided into several areas, including 31 domestic exhibition gardens and 7 international exhibition gardens, for a total of 38 splendid yuán. To be clearer, “domestic gardens” are gardens that aim to reproduce famous cities or provinces of China on a smaller scale, while “international” represent foreign states. Among these we find for example the German Osnabrück Garden and the American Columbus Garden. Finally, there are also some domestic gardens dedicated to specific plant species, such as the very fragrant rose garden or the peony garden.
Each garden adapts in an original and extraordinarily scenographic way the typical elements of classic yuán. Unfortunately, a European visitor does not always manage to connect the individual garden with the city or province it is intended to represent, as most of the explanatory signs in the Hefei Garden Expo Park are not translated into English.
Beyond the gardens. In addition to the 38 charming yuán, Luogang also features other interesting areas, linked to the Hefei administration’s decision to preserve some pre-existing airport facilities. For example, the 3km-long airport runway still exists, although at the moment it takes the form of a long strip of green grass that visitors can walk peacefully on… and children play chasing games.
The terminal buildings are also still standing. Their current function is to host the Garden Expo Town, full of shops and venues where visitors can always find some delicious delicacies. Not far away, wide open spaces provide the perfect location for organizing cultural events and performances.
My experience. I spent a whole day inside the Luogang, but unfortunately I was unable to visit all 38 gardens. To fully appreciate its beauty, in fact, it is essential to take all the time you need… In the photos below I show some of the wonderful landscapes of the gardens of Hefei Garden Expo Park.
Beijing’s garden is dedicated to the city’s ancient theatrical tradition. Inside we find a reconstruction of an ancient theatre and the face of Yang Guifei, a legendary figure based on the true story of a famous concubine of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD).
The garden dedicated to the province of Sichuan is particularly popular with children, who love to play among the colourful statues depicting giant pandas typical of this area of China.
Some domestic gardens also represent areas of China little known to European visitors and particularly distant from the idea we usually have, in the Western collective imagination, of Chinese landscapes…
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