Giant pandas have lived in the bamboo forests of China for several million years. Wild giant pandas live in the mountains of China, in only three provinces: Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu. Their forests lie between about 5,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level. Giant pandas once lived in lowland areas, but farming and development now confine them to the mountains. Cutting down forests has split giant panda habitat into small, separated pieces.
About 99 percent of a giant panda's diet is bamboo. Its digestive system is like a meat-eater's, so it digests bamboo poorly, and it takes in only about one-fifth or less of the nutrients in the bamboo it eats. Bamboo does not give much nourishment, so a giant panda must eat a great deal of it.
A giant panda eats at least 20 pounds of food every day, and it spends 10 to 16 hours of every day finding and eating food. A giant panda home needs at least two kinds of bamboo. When bamboo flowers and dies off in an area, pandas can run short of food.
A female giant panda can have cubs only during a two- to three-day window once a year. A giant panda is not old enough to breed until it is at least 4 years old. A mother giant panda may have two cubs, but usually only one survives. She may successfully raise only five to eight cubs in her lifetime.
China has banned poaching of giant pandas and created reserves to protect their habitat. By 2016, China had set up 67 reserves to protect giant pandas. As of November 2026, China's Giant Panda National Park spans parts of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, and it holds most of the country's wild giant pandas. Reports differ on its exact size and share.
Did it work? As of February 2015, wild giant panda numbers in China had risen from 1,596 to 1,864 between two national surveys about a decade apart. In 2016 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) moved the giant panda from Endangered to Vulnerable. As of November 2026, the IUCN Red List lists the giant panda as Vulnerable, not Endangered.
Words to know
- poaching: illegal hunting
- reserves: protected lands
- habitat: natural home
- Vulnerable: at risk
- surveys: careful counts
