USAC Botanical Garden (Jardín Botánico), Guatemala City: Hours, Entry Fee and Address in Zona 10

The Jardín Botánico of the Universidad de San Carlos (USAC) opens Monday to Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., per the garden’s own website read on 9 November 2026. The site sits at the start of Avenida La Reforma in zona 10. The garden publishes no entry fee; the Ministry of Culture’s undated directory lists Q10 for foreigners and Q3 for Guatemalans.

USAC’s conservation-studies centre, CECON, runs it as a working research garden as well as a public one. On the same grounds is USAC’s own natural history museum, whose stuffed animals, minerals and fossils the Ministry of Culture puts at around 53,270 specimens.

In short: Weekdays 8:00-15:00. Foreigners Q10 and Guatemalans Q3 per the Ministry of Culture’s directory, a fee the garden itself does not publish. Zona 10, on Avenida La Reforma. No weekend hours published. The garden’s phone is +(502) 5412-0108.

Quick summary

Hours: the Monday question

The garden’s home page carries the banner ¡YA ABRIMOS! (open now) and gives Monday to Friday, 8:00 to 15:00. The Ministry of Culture’s SIC directory, which carries no date, gives Tuesday to Friday at the same times. Go by the garden’s own page, but if Monday is your only free day, phone first on +(502) 5412-0108. Neither source publishes Saturday or Sunday opening.

What it costs

USAC’s garden website does not list an entry fee anywhere on its home or contact pages. The only prices come from two secondary listings:

• The Ministry of Culture’s SIC directory (undated): Q3.00 for nationals, Q10.00 for foreigners.
• Guatemala.com’s Aprende section, in an article first published in November 2016 and last updated in March 2024: Q3.00 nationals, Q1.00 public-school pupils, Q10.00 foreigners.

The two agree on the main figures. Neither says whether cards are accepted.

What you can see

The garden’s home page describes a living collection of about 500 plant species and more than 1,000 specimens, from Guatemala and abroad, and calls the garden part of the nation’s natural heritage. The Ministry of Culture’s directory adds that Decreto 26-97 declared it Patrimonio Natural y Cultural de la Nación, and gives a different count of about 450 species.

Guatemala.com’s article describes:

• Pond species, greenhouses, aquatic and carnivorous plants.
• The seed index (Index Seminum) and the herbarium, two of the collections USAC lists on its own site.
• A bust of Carl Linnaeus in the middle of the garden.
• The Chata, a statue of a woman that decorated the Palacio de la Reforma in 1896 and lost its nose in the 1918 earthquake, hence the nickname.
• Migratory birds, insects, rodents and reptiles living in the grounds.

USAC’s natural history museum. The museum side, according to the same article, has 25,000 specimens of fauna and flora spread over 10 rooms, plus scientific collections of 35,000 specimens with collector, locality and date data. The Ministry of Culture’s directory puts the museum’s displays of stuffed animals, minerals and fossils at around 53,270 specimens.

A research garden, not just a park

USAC describes the garden as a specialised unit that grows and maintains living plant collections (the garden itself and the Index Seminum seed collection) and dried, pressed collections (the herbarium, listed on its site as Herbario USCG), and that does research, conservation and education work. Its stated objectives include research on Guatemala’s flora with a conservation focus and spreading botanical knowledge, especially about native plants. The services it lists are consulting specimens in the botanical, seed and garden collections, and sample collection.

A garden since 1922

The Ministry of Culture’s directory dates the official founding to December 1922, under President Carlos Herrera, at the initiative of what was then the Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Farmacia. Guatemala.com adds that the land had held a boys’ school at the start of Avenida Reforma until the 1917 and 1918 earthquakes, after which Herrera gave the site to the university’s pharmacy faculty for a botanical garden.

Two museums with the same name

Two Guatemala City institutions carry the name. This one belongs to USAC and sits with the botanical garden in zona 10. The other, the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural Jorge A. Ibarra, is run by the Ministry of Culture in the zona 13 museum complex. Their published hours differ, so check which one a listing means.

Nearby on our site

• Zona 10 and the Zona Viva: the neighbourhood around the garden.
• The Popol Vuh and Ixchel museums, also in zona 10: Guatemala City museums guide.
• Things to do in Guatemala City.

Sources

• Universidad de San Carlos, Jardín Botánico, home page (hours, collection size), read 9 November 2026.
• Universidad de San Carlos, Jardín Botánico, Contáctenos (address, phone, email), read 9 November 2026.
• Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, SIC listing Museo Nacional de Historia Natural USAC y Jardín Botánico, undated, read 9 November 2026.
• Guatemala.com (Aprende), Museo de Historia Natural y Jardín Botánico de la USAC, published 4 November 2016, updated March 2024, read 9 November 2026. Secondary.