Where to See Pandas in China, Zoo by Zoo

If you are not going to Chengdu, or want more pandas than one base can give you, go to Chongqing Zoo: it had 23 giant pandas in July 2024, more than any other city zoo in China, and the fastest trains from Chengdu take about an hour. Guangzhou is the other strong base, with the world's only surviving panda triplets at Chimelong Safari Park and four pandas at the far cheaper Guangzhou Zoo. Shanghai Zoo keeps pandas too, but Hangzhou Zoo is off the list: its panda house was ordered closed in February 2026.

Which zoo to choose

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, founded in 1987 with six pandas rescued from the wild, is not your only option: zoos in Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Nanjing all keep pandas of their own. Here is what each offers, starting with the city zoo that has the most.

Chongqing Zoo: the most pandas

Chongqing Zoo had 23 giant pandas in July 2024, which made it the city zoo with the most pandas in China. On July 22, 2022, Er Shun, a panda who had lived in Canada, gave birth there to the twins Yu Ke and Yu Ai, and on October 20, 2025, the zoo held a 100-day celebration for the new cub of the panda Liang Yue.

Fame brings crowds. The zoo had 8.5 million visitors in 2024, and in October 2025 fans queued outside from 6 a.m. to see Yu Ai return after more than 100 days of medical recovery. The panda enclosures were rebuilt in 2022, and in mid-2025 the upper-level panda area gained air-conditioning and dehumidifiers. Beyond the pandas, the 45-hectare zoo, open to the public since 1955, exhibits red pandas, South China tigers, white tigers and African elephants.

Chongqing also works as an add-on to Chengdu: since December 2020, the fastest trains between the two cities take about an hour.

Featured location Chongqing Zoo Chongqing, People's Republic of China Chongqing Zoo, opened in 1955, is a zoo in Chongqing, People's Republic of China.

Chimelong Safari Park, Guangzhou: the triplets

Chimelong Safari Park opened in 1997 and keeps more than 20,000 animals of over 500 species, including the largest koala population outside Australia. Its pandas are the headline. Meng Meng, Shuai Shuai and Ku Ku, born in 2014 within four hours of each other, are the only surviving giant panda triplets in the world, as confirmed by the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. Meng Meng, the only female, had a female cub of her own in 2024, and by then the park had bred 11 panda cubs. The triplets' birthday is July 29.

Check before you go. On May 17, 2026, the park temporarily closed its Panda Village exhibit area.

Children aged 5 and over can join the Panda Little Keeper programme and make a cake for the pandas. Bring only baby food and your own drinking water, because no other food or drink is allowed in. Manual wheelchairs and electric wheelchairs that meet the national standard are allowed; to bring an electric wheelchair, register at least two days ahead on 400-883-0083, between 9:00 and 18:00.

Featured location Chimelong Safari Park Guangzhou, People's Republic of China Chimelong Safari Park, opened in 1997, is a safari park in Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.

Guangzhou Zoo: four pandas for 20 yuan

Across town, Guangzhou Zoo has kept 17 pandas since 1965 and has built a new 3,813.16-square-metre panda facility with indoor and outdoor areas, climate control and pools. The twins Jiujiu and Youyou, born at Madrid Zoo in 2021, arrived from the Chengdu base in September 2025 for a five-year exchange programme and made their public debut on October 20, 2025. By December 2025 they shared the new panda house with Xingyi and Yayi, the pair who became popular online in 2023 for understanding instructions in Cantonese. The same ticket covers golden monkeys, red pandas and fennec foxes.

Shanghai Zoo: pandas and South China tigers

Shanghai Zoo lists the giant panda first among its star animals, ahead of the South China tiger, the gorilla and the golden monkey. One of its pandas, Hefeng, was born at the Chengdu base on August 9, 2016. On his ninth birthday in 2025, fans began arriving around 7 a.m., and by 9 the panda house corridor was packed. Stay for the tigers as well: the zoo has kept South China tigers since 1958 and has bred more than 200 of them.

Tianjin and Nanjing

Near Beijing, Tianjin Zoo is a short hop, since trains on the Beijing-Tianjin intercity line take 30 minutes.

Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo has a Giant Panda Habitat of three connected outdoor habitats, and when its new areas opened in October 2025, it became the only city zoo in mainland China where you can see giant pandas, koalas and gorillas.

Hangzhou Zoo: panda house closed

Hangzhou Zoo received the pandas Chunsheng and Xiangguo from the Chengdu base in August 2023, and its panda house became one of the zoo's most popular. Xiangguo died of illness on February 10, 2026. The authorities then ordered the panda house closed for rectification and said Chunsheng would be returned to the Chengdu base.

Tickets and saving money

These prices were checked in September 2026. The two city zoos below charge 20-40 yuan for adults; Chimelong charges 300-350.

• Guangzhou Zoo: 20 yuan for adults.
• Shanghai Zoo: 40 yuan for adults and 20 yuan for children and students; children under 1.3 m, or aged 6 and under, enter free with an adult. You can also buy at the ticket window on the day.
• Chimelong Safari Park: 300 yuan for a standard ticket on regular days and 350 yuan on special days. Children aged 3-11, or 1.0-1.5 m tall, pay 210 yuan on regular days and 245 yuan on special days, and each paying adult can bring one child under 3, or under 1.0 m, free.

Chimelong's special days cover most weekends, summer and winter holiday dates, and Chinese public holidays with the days around them, so a weekday outside the school holidays usually saves 50 yuan per adult. Tickets are checked against the ID document you enter when booking, so carry that document with you. Chimelong doesn't refund tickets or change their date, and in bad weather it may close some exhibit areas without notice.

Best time to visit

Avoid Chinese public holidays if you can. Chongqing Zoo had 530,000 visitors during the 2025 National Day holiday alone, and in 2026 that holiday runs from October 1 to 7. In Guangzhou, the zoo said in 2023 that its entry peak fell between noon and 3 p.m., so arrive in the morning. Summer is hard going in Chongqing, which has some of the hottest, most humid summers in China, with highs of 34°C in July and August.

Shanghai Zoo sells tickets and admits visitors from 8:00 to 17:00 from March to October, and from 8:00 to 16:30 from November to February. Chimelong is open from 9:30 to 18:00 throughout September 2026, and Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo lists its hours as 8:30 to 16:30.

Give Chimelong a full day. Its own suggested route starts with the train ride at 10:00 and ends at the south gate souvenir shop at 17:30.

Getting there

• Chimelong Safari Park: take Metro Line 3 or 7 to Hanxi Changlong, leave by exit E and walk about five minutes to the shuttle stop at Changlong metro plaza. From Hong Kong West Kowloon, the high-speed train reaches Guangzhou South in about 47 minutes, then Line 7 takes about 10 minutes to Hanxi Changlong, where free Chimelong shuttles run to the parks.
• Guangzhou Zoo: walk from exit C of Zoo station on Metro Line 5.
• Shanghai Zoo: take Metro Line 10 to Shanghai Zoo station, exit 1; parking at the zoo is limited.
• Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo: the new south gate, opened in October 2025, faces Nanjing railway station.

Other wildlife nearby

Outside the zoos, pandas are doing better in the wild. China's wild population has grown from about 1,100 in the 1980s to about 1,900, and in 2020 nearly 70 nature reserves were combined into the Giant Panda National Park, roughly three times the size of Yellowstone.