Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, or Kew Gardens - a complex of botanical gardens and greenhouses of 132 hectares in south-west London between Richmond and Kew, the historic park landscape of the XVIII-XX centuries . The gardens were created in 1759, in 2009 250 years from the date of their foundation were celebrated. The director of gardens in 2012 was Richard Deverell, who succeeded Stephen Hopper. "Royal Botanic Gardens Kew" is also the official name of the organization that manages gardens in Kew and gardens in Sussex, Wakehart Place.
Royal Botanic Gardens Kew is an internationally recognized botanical research and training center with 746 employees, an income of £ 57.2 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015, and 1.53 million visitors for the same year. Gardens are funded by the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture (English Defra).
In the gardens of Kew is one of the world's largest collections of living plants. More than 30 thousand plants grow in gardens, and one of the largest in the world herbariums in the world includes 7 million samples. The library contains more than 750 thousand volumes and more than 175 thousand drawings of plants. Kew Gardens publishes Index Kewensis, a botanical nomenclatural reference book in which all published botanical names of seed plants are ranked by genus and below; the quarterly scientific journal Kew Bulletin is also published.
In the gardens there are a number of attractions. In 2003, the gardens are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.