More than a million Taiwanese have seen the two giant pandas given to Taiwan by China since the animals' arrival in November 2008, the Taipei Zoo said Friday.

Chou Chieh-wei, 4, became the 1 millionth visitor when she arrived with her mother at the Panda House in the Taipei Zoo Friday morning.

The zoo presented her with a bag of gifts and a huge greeting card bearing the signatures - paw prints - of the two pandas.

The two pandas were given to Taiwan by Chinese president Hu Jintao to improve ties between the two sides, split since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

They arrived in a chartered plane on November 23 and - after quarantine - made their debut at the Taipei Zoo on January 26. Since then, an average of 12,500 people have visited the Panda House to see the velvety animals per day, making them the star animals of the zoo.

Yet the pandas do carry political symbolism as China named them Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan (Tuanyuan means reunion in Chinese) to symbolize that Taiwan and China should reunify.

Giant pandas are one of the rarest animals in the world. More than 180 giant pandas live in captivity around the world, and about 1,590 remain in the wild, mostly in the mountains of Sichuan, China.

The animals are threatened by loss of habitat, poaching and a low reproduction rate.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Beijing has given dozens of pandas - normally two at a time - to other nations to promote ties, a policy dubbed "panda diplomacy."

China stopped giving away giant pandas abroad as gifts in 1985, and pandas have since been sent overseas only through a lease contract or a joint study.

China's donation of the two pandas to Taiwan was an exception because China regards Taiwan as part of China and claimed it gave the pandas to its Taiwan compatriots as a symbol of friendship.