About the project
Documenting Japanese gardens across Europe
Japanese Gardens in Europe is a research-based online catalogue documenting Japanese gardens, Japanese-style gardens, and related garden spaces across Europe.
The project brings together historical, geographical, visual, and bibliographical information to make these gardens easier to identify, compare, explore, and study.
Garden catalogue
Individual records document garden names, locations, dates, histories, designers, commissioners, current status, garden types, contexts, access conditions, visible features, images, and source references.
Research tools
The collection can be explored geographically through the map, historically through the timeline, or analytically through detailed filters for country, period, type, context, access, designer, and garden features.
Bibliography
A related bibliography brings together books, journal articles, chapters, catalogues, and other publications concerning Japanese gardens, their history, interpretation, reception, and development outside Japan.
Research background
From doctoral research to a public resource
The project developed from research undertaken for the doctoral dissertation The Appearance of Far Eastern Garden Culture in Europe. During that research, an online database was created to organise and analyse information on Far Eastern gardens, with particular attention to Japanese gardens in Europe.
The original Drupal-based research system was designed to connect garden records with bibliographical references, locations, historical information, images, videos, and searchable classifications. Japanese Gardens in Europe continues that work as a public-facing scholarly resource.
Its purpose is not only to list gardens, but also to provide a structured foundation for comparison, historical research, landscape analysis, and the study of how Japanese garden culture has been interpreted and transformed in different European contexts.
Explore the collection
Several ways to approach the material
Map and geographical research
The map provides a geographical overview of documented gardens and makes it possible to examine their distribution across Europe. Individual markers connect directly to garden records.
Timeline and historical development
The timeline presents gardens chronologically, helping to trace changes in their number, location, purpose, and design from the nineteenth century to the present.
Detailed research filters
The research database supports detailed filtering and comparison. Gardens can be examined by country, city, establishment date, garden type, institutional context, access, designer, commissioner, and recorded design features.
Bibliographical research
The bibliography supports further research by connecting the garden catalogue with books, articles, chapters, catalogues, and specialist literature on Japanese gardens and related subjects.
Data structure
What a garden record contains
Garden records are organised using a consistent structure so that sites can be compared across countries and historical periods. Depending on the available evidence, a record may include:
Identification
Garden name, alternative names, locality, country, address, and geographical coordinates.
Historical information
Establishment date, development history, restoration, relocation, redesign, designer, and commissioner.
Classification
Garden type, institutional or spatial context, present access conditions, and current status.
Design features
Recorded elements may include water, islands, stones, bridges, buildings, enclosures, lanterns, gates, pavilions, and other identifiable features.
Visual documentation
Photographs, historical images, maps, videos, and links to external visual sources where available.
Sources
Publications, institutional websites, local sources, archival references, maps, image collections, and other materials used to support the record.
Research method
Search, comparison, and verification
Gardens are identified through a combination of bibliographical research, targeted online searching, map-based investigation, historical sources, and visual verification.
Relevant materials may include scholarly publications, official garden and municipal websites, heritage registers, institutional pages, museum resources, local history websites, maps, aerial imagery, street-level imagery, image collections, archive material, and videos.
Searches are carried out not only in English, but also in the language of the country in which a garden is located. Many gardens are documented primarily through local-language sources and may appear under several different names or translations.
Where possible, information is checked against more than one independent source. The quantity and quality of evidence nevertheless vary considerably. Some gardens are extensively documented through official records and publications, while others are known only through local references, photographs, videos, postcards, archive material, or older descriptions.
Scope and classification
What is included in the catalogue?
The catalogue includes spaces that are documented, described, designed, commissioned, or recognisable as Japanese gardens or Japanese-style gardens. These may include strolling gardens, dry gardens, tea gardens, courtyard gardens, landscape gardens, modern Japanese gardens, and hybrid or mixed designs.
Gardens appear in many different settings, including public parks, botanical gardens, museums, educational institutions, Buddhist centres, memorial sites, private estates, hotels, cultural centres, cemeteries, commercial sites, and friendship or sister-city projects.
The presence of individual Japanese-style objects does not automatically establish a garden as historically or culturally Japanese. A lantern, arched bridge, torii, pavilion, pond, or group of stones may indicate Japanese influence, but the broader design intention, spatial composition, function, historical context, and available documentation must also be considered.
The database therefore records visible elements without reducing a Japanese garden to a checklist of objects. The aim is to support a more careful understanding of how Japanese garden culture has been adopted, interpreted, translated, and transformed outside Japan.
Dates and historical change
Why a single year may not tell the whole story
The date associated with a garden is not always straightforward. A year may refer to the beginning of construction, completion, official opening, redesign, restoration, relocation, reconstruction, the addition of a particular element, or the earliest currently known documentation.
Some gardens developed gradually over several years or were substantially altered after their original creation. Others survive only partially, no longer exist, or have been reconstructed in a different form.
Where the evidence is incomplete or conflicting, the record aims to distinguish established facts from approximate dates, interpretations, and unresolved questions.
Sources and transparency
An evidence-based but evolving catalogue
The project aims to provide source-based and verifiable information. References and external links are included wherever possible so that readers can examine the underlying evidence and continue their own research.
The catalogue does not claim to be final or complete. Gardens may be omitted because they have not yet been identified, because reliable information is unavailable, or because their status and history remain uncertain.
Records may be expanded, corrected, or reclassified as new sources, historical materials, institutional information, and visual evidence become available.
Corrections and new entries
Help improve the catalogue
Corrections, missing gardens, more accurate dates, source references, historical photographs, institutional information, and suggestions for new entries are welcome.
Please include the name and location of the garden, relevant links or references, and a brief explanation of the proposed correction or addition.
Project authorship
Research and development
Japanese Gardens in Europe was created and is maintained by Dr Péter Győri. The project grows out of his doctoral research into the reception, interpretation, and transformation of Japanese garden culture in Europe.