Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center

Chinese name: 成都大熊猫繁育研究基地 (Da Xiong Mao Fan Yu Yan Jiu Ji Di)
Location: No.1375, Panda Road,Northern Suburb,Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
Ticket: Entrance ticket CNY55.00, electric cart CNY10.00
Estimated tour time: 2-3 hours
Recommended time to visit: all year round. 
Nearby attractions: Wenshu Monastery, Wide&Narrow Alley, Tai Koo Li, Wide&Narrow Alley, Jinli Street, etc.

Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center is also called Chengdu Panda Base in short. It is one of the top three popular attractions in China for foreigners to visit. The other two include the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors Museum. Chengdu Panda Base was founded in 1987, covering an area of 160 acres(65 hectares). Unlike common zoos, it is concentrating on breeding pandas to enlarge its population size, as well as recovering the wild populations. So far, more than 160 giant pandas have been raised in the base. At present, nearly 100 giant pandas share the base with some other rare animals and birds, like red panda, peacocks, swans and black-necked cranes. Red panda is another species, looking like racoon in North America. The panda base is a must-go place.

The whole base consists of two giant panda’s delivery houses, five nature-like enclosures for giant panda, two enclosures for red pandas and three museums. The highlight is the Moonlight Delivery House. It is situated on the way to the top of Futou Hill. Most of the newly born baby pandas are kept in both the Moonlight Delivery House and the Sunshine Delivery House. However, the second one mentioned is always occupied by noisy crowds, especially in the peak season,  so many visitors unfamiliar with the base always wait in the long queue to have just a glimpse of the newly born baby pandas. Sometimes, they have to be grilled by the unfriendly sun for almost 2 hours. Their T-shirts are steeped with sweat, even the walking path is sheltered by bamboo groves.

● Best time to Visit

The panda base opens from 7:30am to 6:00pm everyday in the summer. But when the temperature is higher than 26℃(79°F), giant pandas will be kept in their rooms to avoid the summer heat. It is highly recommended to get to the base entrance by 8:15am. The panda keepers usually feed them between 8:30am and 10:30am. At the breakfast time, pandas look active. Afterwards, it seems that giant pandas prefer to indulge themselves with their favorite pastime, sleeping.

Mini shuttle buses are provide by the base. The charge is 10 Yuan per person for a round tip. But there is always a long queue of visitors waiting for the shuttle. In fact, it is not that difficult to walk up along the well-paved paths. Most of the paths are sheltered by bamboo groves. It is cool to stroll around the panda enclosures along the walking paths. They do not need to wait for more than half an hour in the long queue, wasting time only for the less than 10 minutes of shuttle riding. So, we suggest you to walk up to the Moonlight Delivery house, then take the shuttle back to the gate. On the way to the Moonlight Delivery House, you can visit enclosures one by one, like the Adult Pandas’ Enclosure, Panda Cubs’ Enclosure, Sunshine Delivery House, and enclosures of red pandas. You can easily find your way, when you tour in the base. Signposts are place at every intersection of the walking paths, indicating the ways in English, Chinese and Japanese.

● Travel Tips

Tips for photographers

However, separated by fences, you might be at a quite distance from pandas. A long zoom lens is needed for taking good feature photos with high resolution.

Giant Panda Museum

The Giant Panda Museum is the unique one in the world which focuses only on giant pandas. It displays giant panda’s evolutionary history, its distribution in the past and at present, and some other studies on giant pandas. Many items are housed in the museum, like fossils, specimens, dissected pandas, and ancient books. It offers visitors a chance to learn more about giant pandas.

Giant Panda Post Office

There is a post office placed in the base. You can post a postcard stamped with a cute panda postmark to your friends and family members, even yourself.