Along with Koishikawa Korakuen, Rikugien Gardens is one of the two prominent feudal gardens characteristic of the Edo Period. It was created by Yoshiyasu Yanagisawa, a favorite retainer of the fifth Shogun, Tsunayoshi Tokugawa. In 1695, he began to create a strolling-type garden with ponds and hills on a the land that the Shogun had given him to use for a villa. The completion of the gardens took seven years.

In order to create an ideal garden, Yoshiyasu dug a pond, raised an artificial hill, and irrigated water from the nearby Senkawa river to fill a miniature lake. The miniature lake has an island in the middle, and is surrounded by a forest of trees, supposedly in imitation of the scenic view of Kishu (present day Wakayama prefecture) as depicted in an ancient poem. This and many more finds can be enjoyed within the garden grounds that bear testimony to poetic sentiment of the garden builder.

In March of 1953 the garden was designated as a Special Place of Scenic Beauty.