ABSTRACT
Peking's Zoo was started in 1906 principally for the enjoyment of dowager Empress Tse Hui. It was built in the Sanbeizi Park where imperial eunuchs had lived in the past. Later it became known as the Park of Ten Thousand Animals. In 1908 tickets were issued to visitors, though it was not clear how far down the social scale these tickets were available. In 1952 a new Elephant House was built on the site of the cotton fields of the experimental farm, and three years later the Zoo was officially named the Peking Zoological Garden, the name of the park in which it was sited having been changed from Sanbeizi to West Suburbs Park. In 1955 the first three pandas arrived in Peking Zoo, and these were added to in the following years. Between 1957 and 1959 three pandas were exported, two males to Russia and a third, a female, Chi Chi, which ended up in the London Zoo.
