Cactus Exhibition Hall, Ilsan Lake Park (고양 선인장전시관)

The cactus hall stands in Ilsan Lake Park, built in Goyang between January 1993 and December 1995 and opened on 4 May 1996 according to Wikipedia, covering about 1.03 km² including a lake of about 0.3 km². For the greenhouse itself, the oldest dated trace is a set of photographs of a "cactus garden" in the park, taken on 9 October 2011 and geotagged on the building (Wikimedia Commons).

In August 2015 the daily Sidae described it as the largest exhibition in Korea devoted to the single theme of cacti, along the metasequoia avenue, free for Goyang residents and charged for other visitors. Closed to the public during the Covid-19 pandemic, the exhibition reopened in March 2021, and the local press that year announced it as free for everyone. In May 2024 the city announced a feasibility study on the cactus hall and the neighbouring restroom-culture hall, with the idea of linking them to nearby facilities and creating new exhibition content.

The site combines two glass buildings: an exhibition greenhouse, where visitors move among the plants, and a propagation greenhouse (육묘장), where cacti are also displayed and offered for sale. The Goyang tourism association describes a small glass greenhouse of 450 pyeong (about 1,490 m²) in two buildings, while a Korean travel-tips portal counts about 300 pyeong of glass greenhouse and 150 pyeong of propagation greenhouse.

The Korea Tourism Organization states that the indoor temperature is held at 15 °C all year, so the greenhouse can be visited in any season or weather. The entrance has no step, and the same page lists it as wheelchair accessible. The travel-tips portal mentioned above notes that the interior layout draws on a world map and a ship model, meant to show the Goyang cactus setting out to conquer the world.

The city's website and the tourism organization mention about 750 varieties and 6,800 plants; an older travel portal speaks of some 200 species of rare cacti, a figure that does not match the others. Specimens range from plants at ankle height to large cacti that even several people standing on one another could barely reach, according to a 2021 article. They are shown by origin, with paths for Asia, Africa and Europe and, in front of each plant, a label giving its country or continent of origin.

The tourism organization names four rare species, and mentions cultivars bred in Korea that can be grown without licence fees, as well as cacti grafted onto other succulents. Many species flower, which gives the exhibition a colourful look, the press observed in 2015.

The hall sits in the western part of Ilsan Lake Park, along the metasequoia avenue; a small open-air café stood next to the exhibition at the time of the 2015 report, and a snack corner was mentioned in 2021. The greenhouse is toured along themed paths (Asia, Africa, Europe), and its constant 15 °C makes it a pleasant stop in the cold season or in rainy weather. Plants are sold on site, and the workshops on planting succulents or making cactus soap must be booked in advance.

The hall is one facility among others in a park organised around a lake of about 30 hectares. The city also runs a restroom-culture hall there, which the study announced in 2024 plans to link with the cactus hall.