Two Chinese sites, Changshan in east China's Zhejiang Province and Mount Siguniang in Sichuan Province in the southwest, were officially designated as UNESCO Global Geoparks at the 224th session of the UNESCO Executive Board on Wednesday in Paris, France.

With these additions, China now hosts 51 UNESCO Global Geoparks, distributed across 24 provincial-level regions, including the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The Changshan UNESCO Global Geopark in Quzhou City, in east China's Zhejiang Province, covers 1,043.1 square kilometers. It preserves a highly continuous stratigraphic sequence from the Neoproterozoic to the Cenozoic, representing nearly one billion years of geological evolution in eastern Asia.

The site contains China's first "Golden Spike" (Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point, or GSSP), along with abundant fossils such as graptolites, trilobites and conodonts. Its landscape features early-stage reef-karst formations, dramatic granite peaks and the scenic waters of the Changshan River.

Mount Siguniang UNESCO Global Geopark, in Xiaojin County of the Aba Zang and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, spans 2,764.01 square km at the transition between the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and the Sichuan Basin.

It is noted for the Songpan-Ganzi orogenic belt, "Xikang-style" folds, flysch formations composed of turbidites, as well as high-alpine peaks and distinctive glacial landforms.

These features document the region's tectonic evolution from the Paleo-Tethys Ocean to the uplift of the eastern margin of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, offering significant scientific and comparative value.

The geopark is also a global biodiversity hot spot, home to over 2,000 species of higher plants, the world's largest and oldest natural sea buckthorn forests, and more than 300 vertebrate species, including giant pandas and snow leopards.

The UNESCO Global Geoparks designation, established in 2015 under the International Geoscience and Geoparks Programme, promotes the conservation and sustainable use of geological heritage. Today, there are more than 200 UNESCO Global Geoparks across some 50 countries worldwide.

For more: Two Chinese parks added to list of UNESCO Global Geoparks