Giant pandas are found only in the mountains of central China-in small isolated areas of the north and central portions of the Sichuan Province, in the mountains bordering the southernmost part of Gansu Province, and tin the Qinling Mountains of the Shaanxi Province. Pandas are about the same size of an American black bear, giant pandas stand between two and three feet tall at the shoulder (on all four legs), and reach four to six feet long. Males are larger than females, weighing up to 250 pounds in the wild. Females rarely reach 220 pounds.

It is estimated that there are somewhere around 700 and 1,000 giant pandas still alive in the wild. About 140 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world, mostly in China.