10 Facts You Should Know about Chinese New Year

This is because it follows the lunar calendar, based on the movement of the moon. Usually, it falls on a day between mid-January and mid-February. In 2025, Chinese New Year falls on January 29.
 See more about Chinese New Year 2025: Dates & Calendar

                   
The festival usually falls after the solar term, Beginning of Spring (Li Chun), and is a festival in the spring, hence the name.

 In China, each lunar cycle has 60 years and 12 years is regarded as a small cycle. Each of the 12 years is defined by an animal sign: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. 2025 is the Year of the Snake and 2026 is the Year of the Horse.
 Read more about Chinese Zodiac 

The peak time of the entire celebration is on Chinese New Year's Eve and the first day of the lunar new year. The 15th day is called Lantern Festival, marking the end of the celebration.

 It is not only celebrated in Mainland China, but also observed in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and some other Asian countries as well as Chinatowns around the world.

In recent years, the celebrations in New York, London, Vancouver, Sydney and other overseas cities have spread out of Chinatowns. Chinese New Year has become one of the world’s most celebrated festivals.
 See more about Celebrations around the World

 Most employees have 7-12 days off the work, and students have one month winter vacation. The 2025 Chinese New Year holiday is from January 28 to February 3.

No matter where they are, people try their best to return home for a family reunion, like westerners attempting to spend Christmas with their families. Meanwhile, some families travel together during the holiday. This makes the world’s largest annual migration, known as the Spring Festival Travel Rush. The total trips made by plane, train, bus and ship can reach nearly 3 billion.

Travel Rush during the Festival

Family get together for the reunion dinner.

 

The reunion dinner on Chinese New Year's Eve is a big feast to commemorate the past year. This is the most important time to be with families.

After the reunion dinner, families sit together to watch the CCTV New Year's Gala while chatting. As the most watched TV program, the gala collects various well-selected performances, targeting audiences of different generations.

 

Fireworks are an indispensable part of the celebration to liven up the air of Spring Festival. All families set off fireworks to celebrate the festival. The biggest firework show is on Lunar New Year's Eve.
 

Houses are decorated with red Spring Festival couplets, red lanterns, and red paper cuttings; city streets are lit up by red lanterns; and numerous people are dressed in red. This is because red in Chinese culture is the symbol of happiness, wealth and prosperity, and can ward off evil spirits and bring good luck. These red decorations are to the festival what Christmas trees are to Christmas.
 Read more about How to Decorate for Chinese New Year.

Fireworks Show at Hong Kong Victoria Harbour

Red lanterns decorate city streets.

This is like the westerners saying “Merry Christmas” to each other on Christmas Day. It means “Happy New Year”.

Why is the celebration also called "Guo Nian"? "Nian”is the Chinese word for year. In folk culture, the Spring Festival celebration is also called “Guo Nian” (meaning “passing a year”). In a Chinese New Year story, “Nian” is a fierce and cruel monster which eats livestock and kids, but it is scared of red color and cracker sound. Therefore, people use red decorations and fireworks to drive away “Nian”.
 Learn more Chinese New Year Greetings
 

Kids are especially happy to show their beautiful new clothes to their little friends and others.
 

Red packets are the best gifts for kids.

Instead of wrapped gifts that western nationalities give at Christmas, children get red envelopes stuffed with lucky money from grandparents, uncles, aunts and other elders who have started to earn their way. The happy fact is that kids are allowed to spend the money as they like.
 

The most famous festival food is dumplings. Additionally, many others are served to treat the families, including rice cakes (Niangao), spring rolls, fish, and rice dumplings. They are served not only at the reunion dinner, but during the whole holiday; not only at home, but at relatives' places and temple fairs.
 7 Chinese New Year Foods that will Bring You Good Luck
 Traditional Chinese New Year Food in Different Areas
 

It is like a national birthday and it doesn’t matter when you were born. For kids, it means they are able to do more things on their own.

 See more about Chinese New Year for Kids