List of protected areas of China


has more than 10,000 protected areas, covering eighteen percent of the country's land. There are many forms of protected areas in China. Based on their relative importance, each type of protected area can be further graded into two to three levels. Nevertheless, the highest rank for "pocket nature preserve", "no-hunting area", "no-fishing area", "no-logging area", "wild medicinal material resources conservation area", "crop germplasm resources conservation area", "forest tree germplasm resources conservation area" or "source water protection area" is practically restricted to provincial level. The local government at county level is also responsible for the delimitation and declaration of "basic farmland protection area" and "basic grassland".
Many protected areas in China have multiple official designations, and the statutory boundaries of these multi-designated PAs may be identical or may vary from one another. For instance, the boundaries of Huangshan NSHA coincide with those of the Huangshan NGP, whereas Fujian province's Wuyi Mountains NNR, NSHA and NFP are adjacent to each other. In Heilongjiang, 27,642.14 hectares out of 115,340.27 hectares of Huzhong NFP are intersected with the experiment zone of Huzhong NNR.
Following is a list of the protected areas in China.

National Park Candidate Regions

†: The official name is yet to be verified.

National Geoparks of China

†: From May 23, 2009, onwards, the approval process for awarding the NGP qualifications and naming the NGPs are treated separately by the State Forestry and Grassland Administration. Each NGP-prequalified unit is required to complete a site development within the three-year time limit before gaining formal status as a NGP.

National Mining Parks of China (disbanded)

  • Number of NMPs : 0
Note: The former NMPs would either be incorporated into existing protected areas or redesignated as other categories of national-level nature parks. The work is still in progress.

National Ecoparks of China

Note 1: Sites promoted to national-level on the basis of existing provincial wetland park since the implementation of revised Wetlands Conservation and Management Provisions on January 1, 2018.
Note 2: One of the disqualified pilot sites is yet to be verified due to lack of supporting documentation.

National Water Parks of China