New tourism attractions set for Songjiang

With two new tourism sites nearly completed, Shanghai's Songjiang district - called the garden of the metropolis - will offer new attractions for visitors to the World Expo, which is set to continue until the end of the year.

Songjiang's 207-hectare Chenshan Botanic Garden will begin official operation at the end of this month, home to 9,000 species of plants in the near term and 30,000 over the long run.

Though Shanghai has 30,000 hectares of grassland and 90,000 hectares of forests, the city before had only a small botanic garden of 81 hectares to showcase limited biodiversity.