Oedo Island

Oedo is an island of Geoje city, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea. It is a marine western-style botanical garden in Hallyeohaesang National Park, built by Lee Chang-ho and his wife when they settled on the island in 1969.

In the past, Oedo was just a barren island made of rocks. There were no facilities for electricity and telephone because of its isolated location.

Only eight households lived in Oedo. It was quite inconvenient to access the island because of the lack of a dock in early times after independence of Korea.

Mr. Lee and his wife, Choi Ho Suk, started creating the whole garden. At first, they grew tangerines and bred swine. However, that failed and the two came to think of building a botanical garden.

In 1976, their plan was greenlighted with cultivating a land of 1601235 ft² (45,000 pyeong), growing rare plant species such as Agave americana, Rose of Sunshine, windmill palms, and C. peruvianus (a kind of cactus). Oedo has a coastal climate with mild and a bit subtropical weather.

Choi Ho Suk has collected a great deal of data about the world's botanical gardens and studied landscaping, architecture, and arbors.

The island is home to more than 3,000 plant species including many subtropical plants, such as cactus, palm tree, gazania, sunshine, eucalyptus, bottlebrush bush, New Zealand flax, and agave. It is so beautiful that it is called a paradise in Korea.

An excursion ship is available for Oedo island and other areas. Basically, the course consists of eight ways. Of these courses, tourists can travel to Oedo about 1.5 hours or more. The tour course in Oedo would be guided by professionals or other persons concerned.