Wolong (Giant Panda National Park)

Established in 1963, it is the oldest, largest and most celebrated giant panda reserve in China, and in 1980 became the first Chinese reserve admitted to UNESCO's World Network of Biosphere Reserves. In 1983 the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda was founded here, a world pioneer in captive breeding of a species then listed as endangered. The devastating Sichuan earthquake of 2008 (magnitude 7.9) badly damaged the original facilities, forcing the breeding programme to move to new bases such as Shenshuping; since then, and thanks to that sustained work, the giant panda was moved in 2016 from endangered to vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, one of the great species conservation successes of the 21st century. It now forms part of the wider Giant Panda National Park, created in 2021 to knit dozens of scattered reserves into one continuous corridor.