Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries

UNESCO Natural World Heritage site in central Sichuan — a mosaic of seven nature reserves and nine scenic areas covering the principal wild habitat of the giant panda and dozens of other globally threatened species.

The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2006, covering approximately 924,000 hectares of Qionglai and Jiajin mountain ranges in central Sichuan. The property encompasses the Wolong, Siguniang and Jiajin Mountain national nature reserves along with six other reserve units — the largest continuous wild panda habitat remaining in the world and home to more than 30% of the global wild panda population.

The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) was downlisted from 'endangered' to 'vulnerable' on the IUCN Red List in 2016, a recovery partly attributable to the protection afforded by this network of reserves and associated breeding programmes. In the wild, giant pandas depend almost entirely on several bamboo species that grow in dense stands between 2,000 and 3,500 m in the Sichuan mountain forests. The reserve system protects these bamboo forests and the migration corridors between them.

Beyond giant pandas, the property supports over 5,000 plant species and 365 animal species, including red panda, snow leopard, clouded leopard, golden snub-nosed monkey, Chinese water deer and the Chinese giant salamander — one of the largest living amphibians. The area is recognised as a global biodiversity hotspot overlapping with the Eastern Himalayan Biodiversity Hotspot.

The Wolong National Nature Reserve, within the inscribed property, houses the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda, where visitors can observe captive-bred pandas in semi-wild enclosures. The Siguniang Mountains provide high-altitude trekking with views of the Shuangqiao Valley. Most wild panda habitat is inaccessible to visitors.