I have lived in Shanghai for 13 years, but I never visited the Shanghai Zoo, and this blog is lack of a page to this important attraction site in Shanghai. Wendy and I finally went there on our 5th anniversary, so you have this page dedicated to Shanghai Zoo.
General Information
Address: 2831 Hong Qiao Road, Changning district Shanghai
It is exactly at the Hong Qiao airport – within 1 mile or walking distance – it makes sense for an airport to be near a zoo, from the air safety point of view. However, for the animals, it is not a good idea. We hear and see aircraft landing and departing pretty frequently. With the construction of the Hong Qiao train station, the largest one in Shanghai, the animals are actually living in a noisy downtown.
Phone: +86-21-62687775
Price: 30 RMB for adult (or 4 USD), and free for children under 1.2m
Website: http://www.shanghaizoo.cn/En/
Map
Here is the map, seen in Google Earth.
To give you an idea about where exactly is the zoo, here is another map. The green square in the middle is the zoo, and the runway on the left is the Hong Qiao Airport.
Animals in the Zoo
Although it is one of the best in China, it is still far behind the modern zoo we saw in Sydney (like the one with Koala). When we went to the zoo, we were eager to see animals, but we only saw large grasslands, with nice trees, and flowers. "Where are the cute animals" was my question to Wendy after we walk for 5 minutes in the big garden.
Numbers about the zoo confirmed my thought: there are 10,000 trees from 600 species v.s. 6,000 animals from 500 species.
Here is the small monkey in the box – it should just be born and needs to be taken care of. Pretty cute! Wendy and I talked a lot about Yifan when we saw the newly-born monkey, and was impressed by how similar people and animals are.
There are more monkeys here:
Giraffe is the favorite animal of me and Wendy. It walks so gracefully, and looks very clean.
The hottest one – Giant Panda, and there are always many tourists gathering around.
They also have swan lake – with a lot of ducks.
Generally, I am a little bit disappointed after I visited the zoo with great passion – the passion built during our visit to Sydney Zoo. However, overall, I am still very happy. I highly recommend people who don’t know where to go to visit the zoo – by looking a the animals, we do forget completely about our hard problems.
Living Conditions of the Animals
After visiting the zoo, I just feel that the living places of the animals should be even more cleaner, instead of the smelly and dirty places.
I used to think that they LOVE that kind of environment, but I am convinced recently, that animals also love dry and nice place to live. Look at the Panda – why it has to be a gray panda instead of a black and white one?
Updated December 14, 2008
Here are more photos of our visit in December, 2008 of the Shanghai Zoo. This time, there was sunshine, and the zoo looks much better.
Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang
Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang
Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang
Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang
Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang
Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang
Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang
The zoo was located in the middle of nowhere 20+ years ago. The city has grown.
The zoo is a shadow of its former self. It was a decent zoo back then, when the entrance fee was 0.5 Yuan. It’s no longer the case.
You know, I loved going to the zoo as a child. When I went back to the zoo 3 years ago, it was in a sorry state with few animals, a lot of empty cages/buildings.
Do not want.
Are there any koala bears or kangaroos? I know the Dalian Forest Zoo has a couple of kangaroos but I’ve never seen any koala bears outside of Australia, though.
the panda above on the photo do disappoint me a lot . look at its hair. as dirty as something just play in wallow.
I suddenly got the feeling that they are like pool babes in the orphanage, especially small monkeys and panda. Why we cannot respect them as who they are and let them live whereever
they should be.
I went to the zoo last week, and I think it’s a good place for ones who want to free themselves from the hard work or dull life,but please be kindly to the animals,don’t bother them when they have a rest ,because there’s some people really do it like knock the window emphatically ,you don’t even like others bother you in your sleep,right? we are all the unique beings on the earth.
Wow Jianshou, our 5th anniversary is tomorrow, so close! congratulations!
One of the best in China ? You didn’t visit many zoos i guess. It’s not because it’s in Shanghai that its necessary the best.
I found the Shanghai zoo very depressing when i visit it in 2004 (maybe it’s different now). All animals seems poors, in old and pretty dirty cages.
You should try the Wild zoo, the one in Guangzhou is pretty cool (there are some koalas there too) and i know there is one in Shanghai, it’s probably more interesting than this zoo. (but more expensive).
I took my daughter to the zoo couple of months ago. I echo your sentiment on limited amount of animals and the dirty condition the animals live in.
You were lucky the panda was up, they were asleep last time I was there. I read somewhere panda sleeps 23 hour a day.
My favorite parts of the zoo were the brown bears (they interact a lot of the tourists, mainly begging for food), the different types of monkeys (they were really active), and the fish tanks close to the entrance (lots of different types of fishes and nice presentation). Oh, and the peacock opened up for my daughter when we were there. Don’t have the pictures yet, I may post some photos once I finish editing them.
Good job with the photos as always.
i guess the zoo shall finds some good volunteer samaritans to do some charity work for the zoo. A lot of places do that to reduce cost at the same time let the animal lovers have some fun.
Could anyone compare Shanghai Zoo with Beijing’s? I’ve been to Beijing Zoo but never to another.
I didn’t go to Beijing zoo, but based on my impression from Shanghai zoo, Beijing one should be better. :-)