park (public)
HSK level
公园 is written with 11 strokes (公: 4, 园: 7). The animation replays automatically.
公园 (gōngyuán) is a public park — an open green space in a city where people walk, exercise, dance, play chess, or fly kites.
The literal sense is 'public garden,' since 公 means 'public' and 园 means 'garden / enclosed grounds.' In Chinese cities, parks are central to daily life: older residents do morning tàijí there, families gather on weekends, and many parks (like Beijing's 北海公园) double as historical sites. Two notes for English speakers: first, 公园 only means a recreational public park, never a parking lot (that's 停车场 tíngchēchǎng).
Second, large national parks are usually called 国家公园 (guójiā gōngyuán), and a theme park is 主题公园 (zhǔtí gōngyuán). The default 公园 by itself implies a neighborhood or city park.
Character by character
Memory hook: 公 'public' + 园 'garden' — a garden that belongs to the public: a park.
我们去公园散步吧。
Wǒmen qù gōngyuán sànbù ba.
Let's go for a walk in the park.
spoken
公园里有很多人。
Gōngyuán lǐ yǒu hěn duō rén.
There are a lot of people in the park.
spoken
周末我喜欢去公园跑步。
Zhōumò wǒ xǐhuan qù gōngyuán pǎobù.
On weekends I like to go running in the park.
spoken
我家附近有一个大公园。
Wǒ jiā fùjìn yǒu yī gè dà gōngyuán.
There's a big park near my home.
neutral
花园 is a (usually private or smaller) flower garden — at someone's home, a hotel, or a campus. 公园 is a public park open to anyone. 我家有花园 (my home has a garden) ≠ 我家有公园.
公司 means 'company / firm' — a business. Same 公 prefix but totally different word. 去公司 = go to the office; 去公园 = go to the park.
停车场 is a parking lot. English 'park' is ambiguous (verb vs noun); Chinese splits them: 公园 (green space) vs 停车场 (cars). Don't translate 'park the car' as 公园 the car.
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