What is the Lunar New Year?

Celebrated around the world, it usually prompts the planet’s largest annual migration of people. And though it is known to some in the West as Chinese New Year, it isn’t just celebrated in China. Lunar New Year falls this year on Sunday, January 22, 2023, kicking off the Year of the Rabbit. This is a traditional time for family reunions, lots of food, and loud celebrations.

What is the Lunar New Year?

Modern China actually uses a Gregorian calendar like most of the rest of the world. Its holidays, however, are governed by its traditional lunisolar calendar, which may have been in use from as early as the 21st century B.C. When the newly founded Republic of China officially adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1912, its leaders rebranded the observation of the Lunar New Year as Spring Festival, as it is known in China today.

(Learn why some people celebrate Christmas in January. )

As its name suggests, the date of the lunar new year depends on the phase of the moon and varies from year to year. Each year in the lunar calendar is named one of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, which are derived from ancient Chinese folklore. These animals include the rat, ox and tiger, dragon, rabbit, horse, monkey, rooster and dog.

Today, Spring Festival is celebrated in China and Hong Kong; Lunar New Year is also celebrated in South Korea, Tibet, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and places with large Chinese populations. Although the celebrations are different in each country, they are dominated by themes like reunion and hope.

How Lunar New Year is celebrated

For Chinese people, Spring Festival lasts for 40 days and has multiple sub-festivals and rituals. The New Year is a seven-day-long state holiday. Chinese families celebrate the occasion with a huge reunion dinner on the eve. It is considered the year’s most important meal and is traditionally held at the home of the oldest family member.

(Learn about Lunar New Year with your kids. )

The holiday may be getting more modern, but millennia-old traditions are still held dear in China and other countries. People in China light firecrackers to chase away the evil monster Nian. (However, the tradition has been on the decline in recent years due to air pollution restrictions that have hit the fireworks industry hard.) The color red is used in clothing and decorations to ensure prosperity, and people exchange hongbao, red envelopes filled with lucky cash.

Meanwhile in Korea, people make rice cake soup and honor their ancestors during Seollal. Flowers play an important part in Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year.

Lunar New Year has even spawned its own form of travel: During chunyun, or spring migration, hundreds of million people travel to their hometowns in China for family reunions and New Year’s celebrations. In past years, billions of travelers have taken to the road during the 40-day period. Known as the world’s largest human migration, chunyun regularly clogs already busy roads, trains and airports–proof of the holiday’s enduring significance for those who associate it with luck and love.

This story was originally published on January 2, 2020. It has been updated.