Abstract: Plants are the core component of global biodiversity and the basic resources for human survival and development. As an important carrier for the protection and display of plant resources, the botanical garden is a green place for popularizing scientific education, and improving people’s cultural literacy and recreation in cities. China has a vast territory and is one of the countries with the richest geographical features, climatic characteristics, biological resources, and plant varieties in the world. It will be an important measure for China to participate in and lead global plant protection and biodiversity management by establishing a national botanical garden system, comprehensively improving the ex-situ conservation ability and level of Chinese plants, undertaking national functions, displaying the national image, and exerting the national biodiversity conservation value. This paper summarized the characteristics and experiences of foreign national botanical gardens and high-level botanical gardens with national representation, introduced the construction status of botanical gardens in China, analyzed the existing issues in the construction of botanical gardens in China, and put forward some reasonable suggestions on the system orientation, layout principles, construction standards and safeguard measures of national botanical gardens in China to provide an effective reference for the scientific construction of national botanical gardens in China.