Electrical, structural, and optical properties of a free-standing 200 mum thick Ii-type GaN template grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy have been investigated. Hall mobilities of 1100 and 6800 cm(2)/Vs have been obtained at room temperature and 50 K, respectively. Quantitative analysis of acceptor concentration, donor concentration and donor activation energy has been conducted through simultaneous fitting of the temperature dependent Hall mobility and carrier concentration data which led to a donor concentration of 2.10 x 10(16) cm(-3) and an acceptor concentration of 4.9 x 10(15) cm(-1). The resultant donor activation energy is 18 meV. The analysis indicates that the dominant scattering mechanism at low temperatures is by ionized impurities. The extended defect concentrations on Ga- and N-faces were about 5 x 10(5) cm(-2) for the former and about 1 x 10(7) cm(-2) for the latter, as revealed by a chemical etch. The full width at half maximum of the symmetric (0 0 0 2) X-ray diffraction peak was 69 " and 160 " for the Ga- and N-faces, respectively. That for the asymmetric(10-14) peak was 103 " and 140 " for Ga- and N-faces, respectively. The donor bound exciton linewidth as measured on the Ga- and N-face (after a chemical etch to remove the damage) is about 1 meV each at 10 K. Instead of the commonly observed yellow band, this sample displayed a green band, which is centered at about 2.45 eV.