Botanical Gardens and Arboretums as Regards to Cultural Landscapes: Three Cases from Istanbul

The aim of the study is to examine Istanbul University Alfred Heilbronn Botanical Garden, Atatürk Arboretum and Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanical Garden as examples of cultural landscapes and to determine which cultural landscape criteria they reflect. Study areas were evaluated under UNESCO's criteria: World Heritage Cultural Landscape Classes, Natural and Cultural Landscape Criteria, Complementarity Criteria, and Authenticity Criteria. When the analysed areas are compared with each other according to the UNESCO Cultural Landscape Criteria, it is determined that Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanical Garden stands out with examples of cultural features among the cultural landscape criteria as a result of having two cultural landscape criteria (ii, v) as a result of the presence of Ertuğrul Monument constituting an ‘example of monumental art’ (ii) and the presence of Istanbul Mansion Garden constituting an ‘example of human settlement representing a culture’ (v). Alfred Heilbronn Botanical Garden and Atatürk Arboretum stand out with the natural features of the cultural landscape criteria.