Taehwagang National Garden

Character

The Simni Bamboo Grove survived plans to remove it before the Taehwagang itself recovered. Citizens resisted a late-1980s flood-control plan that would have cut the grove; in 1996, the river still recorded BOD of 11.3 mg/L. The national garden grew from two recoveries: saving a landscape and restoring the water around it

Today the bamboo remains one of the garden’s clearest physical anchors, but the river beside it tells the larger environmental story. Water quality improved through sewage infrastructure, river management and sustained civic participation, while the preserved grove became habitat as well as public landscape, supporting herons in summer and large winter crow roosts

The experience

Taehwagang National Garden is too large to treat as one compact botanical garden. It spans both the Taehwa and Samho districts along the river, so choosing the side that matches your interest is more useful than trying to cover the full 835,452 square meters in one visit

The Taehwa district is the stronger first choice for the signature experience: the Simni Bamboo Grove, themed gardens, riverside lawns and the main visitor facilities concentrate here. The bamboo corridor is long enough to change the sensory scale of the city, filtering light and traffic noise while staying directly beside an urban river

Samho shifts the emphasis toward habitat. Its bird-ecology areas and woodland are associated with seasonal herons and winter roosting flocks, making the garden’s ecological recovery more visible than the formal garden design alone

The grounds are fully open, so the river corridor also functions as everyday public space for walking, cycling and evening use. Some named facilities keep their own schedules, including the information center and the illuminated Milky Way Trail

History

Ulsan’s industrial expansion transformed the Taehwagang. After the city was designated a special industrial zone in 1962, rapid factory development and population growth pushed pollution sharply upward. By 1996, the river’s BOD had reached 11.3 mg/L, a level Ulsan’s own history describes as unsuitable even for industrial water

The bamboo landscape faced a different threat. A 1987 river-improvement plan proposed removing the Simni Bamboo Grove to improve flood flow. Citizen campaigns opposed the plan, and in 1995 the central government decided to preserve the grove. Its survival was therefore not an automatic by-product of later river restoration

The water recovery accelerated in the 2000s. Ulsan issued its Ecopolis declaration in 2004, adopted a Taehwagang master plan in 2005 and expanded water-quality, habitat and riverside public-space programs. From 2007 onward, the city reports that the river has maintained top-grade water-quality levels, with fish and other wildlife returning

Garden status came after that environmental reversal. The riverside landscape was developed through ecological and public-garden projects, then designated South Korea’s second national garden on July 12, 2019. National-garden status formalized decades of work that had already changed both the river and the way residents used its banks

Before you go

Choose a district before choosing your arrival point. For bamboo, themed gardens and the main information center, start in the Taehwa district. For bird habitat and a quieter ecological emphasis, use the Samho district

The garden itself is free and open 24 hours with no general entrance restriction. Individual facilities are different: the information center operates 09:00–18:00, and the Milky Way Trail lighting runs from sunset to 23:00