Lunar New Year is a vibrant 15-day festival full of parades, feasts, and the color red. It falls in either January or February depending on the Chinese lunisolar calendar, and in 2025 is January 29–February 12. It’s the most widely celebrated holiday in Asia and has spread to nearly every corner of the globe. The holiday serves as a time for people to gather and eat with family, pay respects to ancestors and gods, sweep away ill fortune and negativity of the previous year, and usher in a new year full of prosperity and good luck.
What is Lunar New Year?
Lunar New Year is the most important holiday in China and in countries with large populations of ethnically Chinese people, including Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Thailand.
Historians aren’t exactly sure when Lunar New Year first began being celebrated, but it’s believed that the holiday was first celebrated sometime during the Shang Dynasty (960–1279 C.E.), when sacrifices were held to honor gods and ancestors. Over the centuries, the custom has evolved to the raucous festival it is today.
The origin of Lunar New Year
The beginnings of Lunar New Year are steeped in folklore. According to legend, in ancient times there was a ferocious monster named Nian (which translates to “year” in Chinese) who had sharp teeth and horns and was fond of eating crops, people, and animals on the eve of each new year. Some wise person realized Nian was scared of the color red and loud noises, and so people tried to protect themselves by covering their houses in red decorations, wearing red clothing, and setting off fireworks. This practice spread across the country and became an annual tradition.
Lunar New Year decorations are red because it’s considered to be an auspicious color, associated with celebrations and prosperity.
DerekTeo/Shutterstock
When is Lunar New Year in 2025?
The exact dates vary each year based on the lunisolar Chinese calendar. Typically, it’s observed on the second new moon following the winter solstice. In China, the holiday is called chūnjié (“spring festival”) and is meant to signify the end of winter and the beginning of spring and all the new life that will soon blossom.
Lunar New Year also corresponds to a new cycle in Chinese astrology, and 2025 will be the year of the wood snake. There are 12 signs in the Chinese zodiac (represented by animals—pig, ox, dog, rat, rooster, tiger, monkey, rabbit, goat, horse, and snake—and one mystical creature, the dragon), as well as five elemental attributes (water, earth, wood, metal, and fire). But unlike the Western zodiac, each cycle in Chinese astrology spans a year—rather than a month—and is characterized by both an animal sign and an element. For example, 2024 was the year of the water dragon, which symbolizes intelligence and tenacity. The wood snake is known for being witty and creative but also secretive.
A Lunar New Year feast in China may include whole fried fish, dumplings, and nian gao, a glutinous rice-flour sweet.
Photo by Rimma Bondarenko/Shutterstock
How is Lunar New Year celebrated?
Lunar New Year is both a massive party and a time to gather with family. A huge number of people travel to see relatives, particularly in China, and the annual movement of people traveling from their places of work (often in cities) is considered the world’s largest annual (human) migration.
Food plays a starring role in any Lunar New Year celebration, and the table will be covered with a feast of symbolic dishes. These will include:
- Dumplings: Their unique shape resembles a yuanbao, or Chinese golden ingot, which was used as currency in ancient times. Consuming more dumplings is said to bring wealth to the diner.
- Longevity noodles, or chang shou mian: This stir-fried noodle dish is supposed to help people live longer; the noodles should be eaten without biting so as not to symbolically shorten one’s lifespan.
- A whole fish: The Chinese words for fish and abundance are homonyms, so feasting on fish is believed to bring prosperity.
The festival is a highly ritualistic celebration. People will thoroughly clean their homes and get rid of unneeded items to cleanse themselves from the bad luck of the previous year and make room for happier times to come. Red papers known as duilian, which have auspicious sayings on them (think “good health,” “Happy Spring Festival,” and “more wealth year after year”) are then put up all over the home.
The holiday also serves as a time to remember and honor family members who have passed, and to pay tribute to Chinese gods and immortals. Before feasting on the first day of the new year, incense is lit, and respects are paid to the gods of wealth, the kitchen, and the bed. Then more incense is lit and food is offered to ancestors; families will usually have a dedicated shrine, or even a room, set up in their homes to commemorate relatives who have passed. Last, red envelopes (hong bao) filled with gifts of cash are given to senior members of the family as well as to children.
Each year, Yu Gardens in Shanghai is decorated for Chinese New Year (2019 was the Year of the Pig).
Photo by atiger/Shutterstock
Where to celebrate Lunar New Year
Lunar New Year is celebrated throughout much of Asia and in countries with a large Chinese diaspora. To experience it yourself, here are four cities where Lunar New Year celebrations are a huge occasion.
Singapore
In this polyglot city-state where people of Chinese descent make up 75 percent of the population, Lunar New Year is a big deal. Festivities center around Singapore’s historic Chinatown where the annual Chinatown Chinese New Year Festival is held. Every year, red Chinese lanterns line the streets, along with over-the-top re-creations of figures from Chinese mythology. Expect to see parades, drum shows, firecrackers, and lion dances. Don’t skip indulging from the many snack carts and food vendors that will also be in attendance.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong (as well as its neighbor Macau) celebrates Lunar New Year a little differently than other places in China do. Sure, there are the usual parades, feasts, and dances, but here, giving and receiving flowers plays a big role in the festivities. Flowers aren’t simply eye candy—each type of bloom has a different meaning. Orchids are one of the most popular blooms to give during the New Year and represent beauty, luxury, abundance, and fertility. Giving someone a gladiolus wishes them luck in their career. And though it’s not a flower, bamboo is another popular present that symbolizes good fortune. The number of stalks gifted is also important: Two stalks represent double the luck while five stalks are a wish for good health.
In the days leading up to and around the Lunar New Year, flower markets flood the streets of Hong Kong. One of the largest is the Victoria Park Flower Market, located in the city’s Causeway Bay neighborhood, which has an astounding 395 stalls to peruse.
Founded in the 1850s by southern Chinese immigrants, San Francisco’s Chinatown is the United States’ oldest—and arguably, most famous—neighborhood of its kind.
Photo by Kevin Vision/Unsplash
San Francisco
As the oldest Chinatown in North America, San Francisco also holds the largest and oldest Lunar New celebration on the continent. Lunar New Year is not a one- or two-day affair in the Golden City; it’s two weeks filled with activities, including the Miss Chinatown pageant, a flower market fair, and the world-renowned San Francisco Chinese Parade, which attracts approximately 3 million in-person spectators and television viewers per year.
The parade, which will be held on Saturday, February 15, this year, features several floats decorated by members of the local Chinese community, including a 28-foot-long golden dragon. The parade will kick off at 5:15 p.m. at the corner of Second and Market Streets and end at about 8 p.m. at the intersection of Jackson and Kearny Streets. For more information about the history of San Francisco’s thriving Chinese community, stop by the Chinese Historical Society of America, in the heart of Old Chinatown.
New York City
New York City has nine Chinatowns of varying sizes, and the one in Flushing, Queens, is the largest in New York State and the world’s most populous. If you want to try food from all corners of China, come to Flushing. There’s no shortage of ways to celebrate Lunar New Year in New York. Here are a few to look forward to:
- The Ace Hotel in Downtown Brooklyn is celebrating the Year of the Snake starting at 7.pm. on January 31, with a DJ, saxophonists, mah-jongg, Chinese New Year bites, and a mask-making station.
- Traditional lion dances and ribbon twirling will take place at Hudson Yards on February 1 at 1, 3, and 5 p.m. thanks to the New York Chinese Cultural Center.
- On February 1, the New York Chinese Cultural Center, in partnership with the South Street Seaport Museum, is throwing a Lunar New Year bash complete with lion dancing, Chinese crafts, and calligraphy workshops at the seaport in downtown Manhattan. RSVPs requested.
- Bushwick’s 3 Dollar Bill will host “an all-Asian drag festival” on February 1 with Jiggly Caliente, Angel Au, and Shia Ho, among others, on the lineup. Tickets start at $35 per person.
This article originally appeared online in 2023 and was most recently updated on January 28, 2025, with current information.
