bearlike mammal inhabiting bamboo forests in the mountains of central China. Its striking coat of black and white, combined with a bulky body and round face, gives it a captivating appearance that has endeared it to people worldwide. Some 1,600 pandas are estimated to remain in the wild.

Large males may attain 1.8 metres (6 feet) in length and weigh more than 100 kg (220 pounds); females are usually smaller. Round black ears and black eye patches stand out against a white face and neck. Black limbs, tail, legs, and shoulders contrast with the white torso. The rear paws point inward, which gives pandas a waddling gait. Pandas can easily stand on their hind legs and are commonly observed somersaulting, rolling, and dust-bathing. Although somewhat awkward as climbers, pandas readily ascend trees and, on the basis of their resemblance to bears, are probably capable of swimming. An unusual anatomic characteristic is an enlarged wrist bone that functions somewhat like a thumb, enabling pandas to handle food with considerable dexterity.

Fossils from northern Myanmar and Vietnam and much of China as far north as Beijing indicate that the giant panda was widely distributed throughout eastern Asia during the early Pleistocene Epoch (1,800,000 to 10,000 years ago). Human destruction of its forest habitat, combined with poaching, has restricted the species to remote fragments of mountain habitat along the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau (Tibet, Plateau of) in the Chinese provinces of Sichuan (Szechwan) (Sichuan), Shaanxi (Shensi) (Shensi), and Gansu (Kansu) (Gansu). The total area of these habitats is about 13,000 square km (5,000 square miles), and in recent times periodic mass flowering and die-offs of bamboo have brought starvation for some populations. (Five to 10 years are required for bamboo forests to recover from these natural events.) Since the 1990s China has greatly expanded its conservation efforts, and it now regards this endangered species as a national treasure. The reserve system has been expanded from 14 sites to more than 40, and cooperative international arrangements were implemented to provide training in reserve management and captive breeding (animal breeding). Prior eras of giving pandas as gifts and of short-term commercial loans to zoos have given way to lending agreements that generate funds for preservation of the wild population. More than 120 pandas are maintained in captivity in China, and another 15 to 20 are found in zoos elsewhere. Captive populations are increasing. Su-Lin, the first of the giant pandas to be exhibited in the West, reached the United States as an infant in 1936 and was a popular attraction at the Brookfield Zoo, near Chicago, until its death in 1938. No European observed a live giant panda in the wild until the Walter Stötzner expedition of 1913–15, although Armand David, a Jesuit missionary, discovered some panda furs in 1869.

George B. Schaller et al., The Giant Pandas of Wolong (1985), written with the help of Chinese researchers, is the first account of panda biology and continues to be the single most comprehensive source of information on the species.Secrets of the Wild Panda (1994), produced for the National Geographic Society by Mark Stauffer, Adrian Warren, and Nicholas Noxon, is a video documentary of pandas in their natural habitat along with the biologists who are studying them to ensure their survival.