BEIJING — China is planning to create a preserve for the giant panda that will be three times the size of Yellowstone National Park in the western United States.

The panda preserve will link parts of three western provinces to provide an unbroken range for the endangered animals in which they can meet and mate in the interests of enriching their gene pool, the Xinhua News Agency said Friday.

Xinhua said about 170,000 people will have to be moved elsewhere to make way for the 10,476-square-mile preserve.

Giant pandas are China’s unofficial national mascot and live mainly in the mountains of Sichuan, with some in neighboring Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. An estimated 1,864 live in the wild, where they are threatened chiefly with habitat loss, and another 200 in captivity.

Residents of the future park area will be offered homes and jobs. Although they had lived in the area for generations, they were disrupting the lives of the pandas with their bamboo harvesting and livestock grazing, Xinhua said.

Preservation of the species was further hindered by provincial borders between Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi that enforced different standards on protected land.

Associated Press