At first, in the early 18th Century the Botanical Garden was at a different place next to what is today the Royal Palace of Aranjuez and was created by Felipe II. Later, in 1755, Fernando IV founded the official Royal Botanical Garden. At this time the garden possessed more than 2,000 species gathered by Jose Quer throughout his journeys, who, at the time, was the royal botanist and surgeon. A couple of decades later, in 1774, Carlos III gave instructions for the garden to be relocated to its current location in the centre of Madrid. The National Academy of Natural History and the Observatory were also inaugurated on the spot, which eventually became the present-day Prado Museum.

The first project of the new garden was entrusted to the scientific adviser Casimiro Ortega and to the architect Francesco Sabatini (who also took part in the construction of the Royal Palace). Both of them worked on the project from 1774 to the year of inauguration 1781 and designed the initial plan with a layout in three levels. On this base, between 1785 and 1789, Juan de Villanueva made a second and definitive project, more rational and agreed to the scientific and educational function that the garden was intended to perform. This garden, occupying a surface of 10 hectares, was distributed in three terraced levels following an octagonal layout and finished off in the corners with circular basins. The enclosure was surrounded by a wall and the entrances had the magnificent Iron Doors. Within the garden’s area there were many elegant maintenance buildings, including the Villanueva Pavilion Greenhouse and the seats of the Library, the Herbarium and the classrooms for Agriculture and Botany.

Over the 18th and 19th Centuries several botanical expeditions were organised in order to develop the scientific importance of the Royal Botanical Garden. In the 19th Century, a zoo was founded in the Botanical garden but it was transferred later to the premises of the Buen Retiro Park. In the late 19th Century, the Garden shrank to its present size of 8 hectares due to the construction of the current building of the Ministry of Agriculture and the opening of Booksellers’ Street. The 20th Century was a time of neglect for the Botanical Garden which resulted in its closing in the 1970s to be reopened only after the major restoration works in the 1980s when it returned to its original glory.

Nowadays, the living plants are exhibited on terraces designed by the architects from the 18th Century. On the first floor there is the largest ‘Terrace of the Pictures’ containing medicinal, aromatic and ornamental plants arranged in lovely geometric figures. The second floor ‘Terrace of the Botanical School’ keeps the taxonomic order of the plants by family and evolutionary level. The ‘Terrace of the Plane of Flowers’ is a romantic-style garden with the famous Villanueva Pavilion that serves as an exhibition room. On the north of this terrace there are two greenhouses: the Graells and the Exhibition Greenhouses (built in 1993 in quite a modern style). Both display different kinds of plants that can’t normally grow in the climate of Madrid: tropical, subtropical and arctic plants among others. The fourth terrace was added in 2005; it holds special collections and is quite small in size. Except the plants, visitors can enjoy the fine architecture of the constructions of the Botanical Garden, as well as marvel at the lovely sculptures all round its premises.