Six giant pandas who were born and grew up abroad before returning to their ancestral home in China moved into new pens Friday at a research center in the southwestern Sichuan Province.

The "Paradise for Overseas-Born Pandas," a cluster of new pens at Bifeng Gorge Breeding Base in Ya'an City, in a clearing away from other panda houses, can accommodate more than 10 pandas.

Among the first inhabitants were five U.S.-born pandas -- Su Lin, Zhen Zhen, Tai Shan, Hua Mei and Mei Sheng -- and Austrian-born Fu Long, said Tang Chunxiang, a researcher at the Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center.

Hua Mei, the first U.S.-born panda, returned to China in 2004.

The most recent returnees, Su Lin and Zhen Zhen, arrived in September.

Tang said separate living quarters for the pandas would enable researchers to observe more closely how each was getting along in a new environment.

The Wolong center has sent 14 giant pandas overseas for joint breeding programs since the first one traveled to San Diego, the United States, in 1996.

Thirteen cubs have been born abroad, of whom nine survived.

Friday's inauguration of the new panda homes coincided with the debut of all 16 panda cubs born at the Wolong center this year.

The events drew diplomats from the United States, Austria and Singapore and international zoo workers, who posed for photos with the cubs, cleaned their pens and fed the bears.

The Wolong center said its pandas gave birth to 19 cubs this year, including two in Beijing and one in Austria.

The center has 165 pandas in captivity. P Meanwhile, the Chengdu Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding, another panda research body in Sichuan's capital, Chengdu, reported 12 newborn pandas this year, including five born at zoos in Spain, Japan and the United States.

The Chengdu base has 98 pandas.