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The largest botanic garden in Sri Lanka in extent and the only botanic garden in the dry zone of Sri Lanka.

 

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Dry Zone Botanic Gardens is the first botanic garden in Sri Lanka designed by local experts and the first botanic garden created after Botanic Garden at Gampaha was created 130 years ago. This is the first botanic garden in Sri Lanka created in a semi-arid zone to conserve semi-arid and dry zone plants ex-situ as one of the main purposes. The other main purposes are to conduct studies on plants and promote economic development in the area.

Dry Zone Botanic Gardens is the largest botanic garden in Sri Lanka in terms of extent and the extent is 300 acres. An area that was allocated for the oil refinery project has been allocated to create Dry Zone Botanic Gardens in 2006. This land had been covered with thorny shrubs and abandoned chena lands when it was allocated to create the botanic garden. A few decades ago these lands had been used to cultivate cotton. This would be the main reason to exist thorny shrub in the area instead of a forest. However, the botanic garden has a few natural shrublands to show the existed vegetation and to conduct researches.