How Many Pandas Are Left By 2026?

By Chuan-X Panda
Updated: July 12, 2026 10:30 AM

As of Nov. 21, 2025, there are about 2700 giant pandas in the world in total, the global captive population of giant pandas has reached 808, and there are around 1900 giant pandas in the wild, which was announced by Liu Guohong, Director of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration of China, at the 2025 Global Panda Partners Conference held in Chengdu on November 21, 2025.

At present, the wild population of giant pandas has grown to around 1900. Mainly distributed in China's giant panda national parks (covering Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces: central and western China) and surrounding protected areas. Among the number of wild giant pandas in the world, 1227 wild pandas live in the Sichuan area of the Giant Panda National Park, accounting for 64. 57 % of the total in the world.

Of the world’s 808 captive giant pandas, around 110 are kept outside Sichuan Province of China, including facilities in Shaanxi, Beijing, Shanghai and zoos in other countries. The vast majority of the rest live within Sichuan.

Distribution of Captive Giant Pandas in Sichuan Province

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding houses approximately 260 to 270 pandas, according to the base’s latest statistics released in early 2026. The China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas, which operates five bases (Wolong Shenshuping, Wolong Hetaoping, Dujiangyan, Ya’an Bifengxia and Mianyang), has a total of 387 pandas. Around 40 more pandas are raised at other smaller breeding sites across Sichuan, such as Chengdu Zoo, Qingshen Panda Garden, Dujiangyan Panda Valley and Shunan Bamboo Sea Panda Garden.

That's why Sichuan is known as the hometown of pandas.

According to a notice from the National Forestry and Grassland Administration of China at the end of the year 2024, as of January Nov. 26, 2024, there were about 1900 wild pandas and 757 captive giant pandas in China. But the data has been updated now. As shown in the figure below, the number of captive pandas worldwide has increased from 422 to 808 in the past decade, nearly doubling the growth rate.

It should be pointed out that as of the end of 2025, by 2026, the number of wild pandas is 1900, which is basically the same as the number of pandas in 2024. And the number of captive giant pandas increased from 757 in 2024 to 808 in 2025. It can be seen that the survival rate of wild pandas is not ideal as expected, although captive pandas has sustainably increased.

Captive Giant Panda Population Distribution Worldwide (as of March 2026)

In all, although giant pandas have been downgraded from "endangered" to "vulnerable" animals and significant progress has been made in their conservation efforts, the number of captive giant pandas is still relatively small due to genetic isolation, human interference, low reproductive rates, and other factors, posing a risk of extinction. Therefore, the conservation of giant pandas requires continuous efforts.

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