The article discloses the peculiarities of the nature and residential environment in the first garden cities in Galicia: “Salwator” in Krakow and “Novyi Svit” in Lviv. The topicality of the issue is predetermined by the need for supplementing and developing available scientific researches related to the study of the garden city concept as well as for analyzing profoundly and comparing the architectural and townplanning structures of the garden cities in Galicia at the early stages of their development. Both general scientific methods (historical, comparative, structural analysis), and special field observations have been used. This comprehensive approach has enabled us to point out the special features (planning, functional) of the garden cities as exemplified by Lviv and Krakow. It has been proven that the development of the architecture and town planning of the above cities in the early ХХth century corresponds to the general European trends, while the concept of garden cities was implemented in a fragmented way, that is in the form of gardens-on-the-outskirts.