The administrative bureau of the Giant Panda National Park was formally established in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Monday.

Zhang Jianlong, head of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, and Yin Li, governor of Sichuan, unveiled the plaque of the bureau.

Speaking at the plaque-unveiling ceremony, Li Chunliang, deputy chief of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, said that establishing the Giant Panda National Park in the main habitats of the giant panda is of great importance to the protection of biodiversity with the giant panda as the core and ecosystem.

Planning for the Giant Panda National Park began on January 31, 2017, when the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and State Council issued a circular on the project.

The park covers 27,134 square kilometers, 20,177 square kilometers of which are in Sichuan, 2,571 square kilometers in Gansu province and 4,386 square kilometers in Shaanxi province.

It is expected to help wild pandas isolated on six mountains across Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces to breed, strengthening their gene pool.

More than 80 percent of the world's wild pandas live in Sichuan, with the rest in Shaanxi and Gansu.

According to China's fourth panda census released in 2015, there are only 1,864 wild pandas in the world.