China's 1st group of national parks announced

President Xi Jinping announced a list of the first group of China's national parks at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity via video on Tuesday.

The parks include Sanjiangyuan, Giant Panda, Northeast China Tiger and Leopard, Hainan Tropical Rainforest and Wuyi Mountain.

The protected area of the parks spans 230,000 square kilometers and is home to nearly 30 percent of national key protected species of land wild animals and plants.

The parks are in Qinghai, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Hainan, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces, and Tibet autonomous region.

National parks protect representative natural ecosystems of the nation, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration said. The parks are areas with the most unique natural landscapes, the best natural heritage and the richest biodiversity.

Among them, the Sanjiangyuan National Park in the hinterland of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau contains the source of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers. Glaciers and snowy mountains, high-altitude wetlands, desert, alpine grassland and meadows are widely distributed in the park.

The Giant Panda National Park that spans Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces is home to more than 70 percent of the country's wild giant pandas.

The Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park in Northeast China's Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, bordering Russia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is home to the largest wild Siberian tiger and Siberian leopard population.

The Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park in South China's Hainan province preserves the most complete and diverse continental island tropical rain forest in China.

The Wuyishan National Park that strides border of Fujian and Jiangxi provinces is a treasure home of flora and fauna in Southeast China.