Some 500 people gathered together here Saturday morning in Zoo Atlanta to welcome the arrival of a Chinese delegation which came specially to see the two giant pandas in the zoo.

The 11-member delegation, which consists of government officials, a panda researcher, journalists and a TV production crew, was from Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

"We came here to visit Lun Lun and Yang Yang whose parents live in the Chinese city with 10 million people and 80 percent of the world's giant pandas," said Song Minwen, chief of the delegation, in the ceremony marking the arrival of the Chinese group

Both pandas arrived in Zoo Atlanta on a 10-year loan from the Chinese Government in 1999. "Since then, they have brought great joy to locals, children in particular," said Blythe Randolf, vice-president of Zoo Atlanta, in an interview with chinadaily.com.cn.

Jennifer Mullins, associate director of the Office of Student Financial Planning and Services in the Atlanta-based Georgia Institute of Technology, visits Zoo Atlanta with her 2.5-year-old daughter Abbey Headerson once in a month to see pandas and elephants.

Mullins, who happened to meet the Chinese delegation, said that she had Chinese students who had told her much about pandas, and that she knew that Chengdu was the habitat of pandas.

Chengdu, which is home to the world's only giant panda research and breeding centre built in a large city, is home to 48 of the world's existing 1,000 pandas.

The get-together to welcome the Chinese delegation was another grand ceremony in Zoo Atlanta after the arrival of both pandas seven years ago, Randolf said.

In less than one hour, 500 picture albums of Chengdu, 500 badges of the giant panda, 400 photos of the giant pandas and 150 toys of the giant panda were taken away by some 1,000 visitors to the zoo.

Claire McLeveighn, director of External Affairs and International Relations of the city of Atlanta, said that the pandas had become the pride of her city with a population of nearly 5 million. They had built a bridge helping people in Atlanta and Chengdu to understand different cultures.

Giant pandas had created chances for both cities to co-operate in different fields, said McLeveighn who hoped a panda cultural week would be held simultaneously in both cities next year.

Zoo Atlanta was the second stop on an 11-city world tour for the Chinese delegation filming a panda TV documentary and promoting the animal's "hometown" Chengdu. The first stop was Memphis, Tennessee in the United States.

MEMPHIS -- Le Le, a male panda in the Memphis Zoo in this state of Tennessee, the United States, became a star on Tuesday local time, as it turned eight.

Throngs of people from different parts of the United States visited it in the zoo with a history of 100 years. I had travelled a long distance to see the cuddly bear, said Marcie Gitlin, a middle-aged art designer from New York.

Travelling with her family, Gitlin told chinadaily.com.cn that her nine-year-old daughter had dreamed of seeing pandas for quite for a long time.

Both my daughter and I felt lucky to meet people from Chengdu, the habitat of the giant panda today in the zoo, and learned a lot about the panda, she said.

A delegation of 11 people from Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, arrived in the United States on Monday afternoon to start a 16-day panda tour.

The visit, whose first stop is Memphis, is aimed at arousing more people's concern for the endangered animal species and making more people know Chengdu, said Song Minwen.

The giant panda has been around for about 3 million years in the world. Many animals of its era have long perished.

But due to human activities and the degeneration of the environment, the number of habitats of the giant panda has been on the decline. There are only some 1,000 wild pandas in the world. About 85 per cent of them live in mountainous areas in Sichuan.

Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, is home to the world's only giant panda breeding and research base built in a large city. There are 48 pandas in the base.

While celebrating Le Le's birthday in the Memphis Zoo, members of the Chengdu delegation introduced the history of the giant panda, Chengdu's efforts in protecting the endangered species and sent gifts with the panda as the logon to visitors to the zoo.