Natural wealth and business savvy helps Chengdu shine

In August 2020, after a global vote, Zhima was elected as the real-life image of the Chengdu FISU Games mascot Rongbao. There are few large international sports events that have mascots based on real animals but Rongbao is one of them.

Cultural and creative products developed from Rongbao have gained much attention and become top products that people have been eager to buy.

In addition to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, there are two panda bases in Dujiangyan city under the administration of Chengdu: the Panda Valley, a center that trains pandas to live in the wild; and the Dujiangyan base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda.

Chengdu is also an important natural habitat for wild pandas. The Chengdu area of the Giant Panda National Park is a key corridor hub for the gene introgression of the giant panda populations in Qionglai Mountains and Minshan Mountains. The country's fourth giant panda survey showed that 73 wild pandas lived in the area.

For Sichuan and Chengdu, pandas do not just exist in a panda base or the wild, but are integrated into the local culture in the form of sculptures, dolls, restaurants and even the front of buses that look like a panda's face. Walking in Chengdu, you can always see various kinds of panda-related objects.