Hallim Park

Character

Hallim Park began in 1971 with palm seeds sown across roughly 330,000 square metres of barren sandy ground. More than five decades later, the park is a deliberately grown landscape where mature planting sits alongside lava caves, a folk village and collections of stone and bonsai

The park now has nine named areas: the Subtropical Botanic Garden, Palm Tree Road, Wild Grass Garden, Hyeopjaegul and Ssangyonggul Caves, Jeju Stone and Bonsai Garden, Jaeam Folk Village, Safari Bird Garden, Jaeam Stone Museum and Water Garden. Their range explains why Hallim feels less like a single botanical garden than a sequence of different kinds of display and landscape

The caves introduce geology into that planted setting. Hyeopjaegul and Ssangyonggul are lava caves, yet calcium-rich water seeping through their ceilings and walls has produced stalactites and stalagmites more commonly associated with limestone caves. The cave system is protected as Natural Monument No. 236

The experience

Palm Tree Road carries the most direct physical link to the park’s beginning. The tall palms along the route grew from seeds planted into the sandy ground in 1971, so the mature canopy is also a record of how long the site has been cultivated

Open gardens and tree-lined paths lead into greenhouses, then underground cave sections, then back into areas devoted to bonsai, Jeju stone, folk buildings, birds and water planting. Covering all nine themes therefore involves more than circling one garden

Jaeam Stone Museum adds a more personal collection history. It opened in 1996 after founder Song Bong-gyu and his wife Kim Jeong-sim donated stones they had collected, with the display later expanded to include stones, minerals and fossils from Korea and abroad

History

Song Bong-gyu began developing the site in 1971 after studying tourism in Japan the previous year. The first large intervention was basic horticulture: palm seeds were planted into a sandy tract that the park describes as barren ground

A legal change in 1982 allowed private operators to create parks. Song applied for approval and received permission for the Hallim Urban Park development project on September 15 that year, creating the framework for a much larger visitor park around the original planting

The 1996 opening of Jaeam Stone Museum shows how the site continued expanding beyond horticulture. A private collection became a permanent exhibition, joining caves, reconstructed folk material and specialized gardens within the same grounds. Hallim Park’s present form is the result of those additions accumulating over decades

Before you go

The operator estimates about 90 minutes for a visit, but the ticket covers all nine themed areas and the route includes both outdoor gardens and cave sections. The park is open year-round, with seasonal ticket-closing times that shift with daylight