Exhibition Greenhouse of Gwangju Municipal Arboretum (광주시립수목원 전시온실)

The greenhouse belongs to Gwangju's first public arboretum, whose principle was settled in July 2008. The project set out to turn degraded land around the regional landfill at Yanggwa, a facility residents regarded as a nuisance, into a park devoted to the trees of the region. Land compensation ran from 2009 to 2021, the plan was approved in November 2017, heritage excavations took place from May 2019 to April 2021, and construction lasted from April 2020 to December 2022. A management ordinance followed in August 2023.

The arboretum opened on 20 October 2023 on 24.7 hectares, with the exhibition greenhouse, a Korean garden, a lawn and a seasonal flower garden. Gwangju was then the only one of Korea's seventeen provincial-level regions without a public arboretum. In a January 2026 interview, the head of the arboretum's management section put the total cost at 53.4 billion won and explained that the planned 64 hectares had been cut to 24 for budget reasons; the greenhouse likewise stayed small, with an extension envisaged if funds are found. A themed exhibition on tropical gardens was held there in summer 2025, and in December 2025 the arboretum was registered as Gwangju's first public arboretum, the 38th in the country. Sources from 2026 now place the city within the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City.

According to a television report of November 2023, the greenhouse is a glass volume about 20 metres high, flooded with light, standing beside the visitor centre at the entrance of the park. A visitor blog of 2024 gives it 60 m by 40 m; the outline drawn by OpenStreetMap contributors, about 63 m by 32 m, is close to these figures without confirming them exactly.

Inside, a small stream and waterfall are shaped to recall the rock columns of Mount Mudeung. In January 2026 the head of the arboretum noted a temperature of 18 °C there. He compared the facility with the Sejong national arboretum, where tropical plants, subtropical plants and cacti occupy separate halls because each needs its own temperature and humidity, and said that the Gwangju house had started small for lack of budget.

The press releases of October 2023 name mango and papaya among the tropical plants on show. A visitor blog of 2024 also mentions a hairy cactus called norak in Korean and a crested (fasciated) specimen of a plant named yongsinmok. In January 2026 the manager cited Acacia baileyana 'Purpurea', an evergreen tree with feathery foliage, as a representative species.

The announced numbers vary: about seventy tropical species according to the blog of August 2024, more than 200 tropical and subtropical species according to the interview of January 2026. For the park as a whole, the arboretum reported 550 species at the end of 2023, then 1,047 species and about 480,000 plants in early 2026. In summer 2025 a themed exhibition titled "The Riddle of the Mysterious Tropical Garden" presented the fauna and flora of tropical regions.

The greenhouse stands near the visitor centre, at the entrance of the arboretum. The site manager describes it as the most popular space in the park, especially in winter, when walking outdoors becomes unpleasant. It is only one part of a 24.7-hectare estate with ten themed zones, among them the Korean garden, the lawn, the seasonal flower garden, the garden of the five senses, the shrub garden and the persimmon hill.

The trees have been planted only since 2023 and are still young, so the park looks open; the team asks for patience and expects about ten years for the plantings to settle. According to the official access page, the "Hyangdeung" bus stop is about five minutes' walk from the entrance.