University of Uppsala Botanical Garden

The University of Uppsala Botanical Garden near Uppsala Castle, is the principal botanical garden belonging to Uppsala University. It was created on land donated to the university in 1787 by Sweden's King Gustav III, who also laid the cornerstone of Linneanum, its orangery. Uppsala University also maintains two satellite botanical gardens. The older of these is its original botanical garden, created in 1655 by Olaus Rudbeck, now called the Linnaean Garden The other satellite is Linnaeus Hammarby, the former summer home of Carl Linnaeus and his family.

Early botanical gardens focused on educating and supplying physicians, as had the medicinal gardens of medieval monasteries. Medical training remained the primary purpose of university botanical gardens throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1655, Uppsala University's Olaus Rudbeck the elder created the university's first botanical garden on Svartbacksgatan in Uppsala. By the end of the 17th century, the garden contained about 1,800 different species.