China's Langzhong city extends Spring Festival holiday, invites tourists with cultural programme

NANCHONG, CHINA: Langzhong City in Sichuan province, China, has announced an extended Spring Festival holiday. The city said the festive period will run from January 26 to March 4, 2026, corresponding to the lunar calendar window from the eighth day of 12th lunar month to 16th day of the first lunar month.

Officials unveiled the schedule at a briefing on February 4 hosted by the Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism. They said the longer holiday will give residents and international tourists more time to attend exhibitions, performances and hands-on cultural activities across this historic site in China.

Highlights include the Langzhong Stone Rubbing Exhibition for the Lunar New Year, which displays stone rubbings of inscriptions dating back about 1,500 years. Street performances will feature the figure known locally as the “Old Man of the Spring Festival”, who will wear traditional costume and offer blessings and New Year greetings.

A market of intangible cultural heritage will present more than 40 nationally and provincially recognised items. Visitors can try crafts such as shadow-puppet making and cutting festive paper window decorations. Performances of the Ba Commandery Nuo Opera, a Sichuan intangible cultural heritage item that blends ritual practice with folk opera, are also scheduled.

The New Year Grand Temple Fair will run throughout the festival and combine cultural performances, themed exhibitions and modern recreational attractions. Organisers said large-scale stage productions such as the Legend of Langyuan, water tours and low-altitude flights will be available, offering entertainment for families and cultural tourists.

Langzhong’s claim as the “Ancient City of the World and Birthplace of the Spring Festival” is linked to Luo Xiahong, an astronomer of the Western Han Dynasty who compiled the Taichu Calendar in Langzhong. Luo’s calendar added the 24 solar terms to the Chinese system and fixed the first day of the first lunar month as the start of the year, a change that shaped agriculture and folk life across China for centuries.

City officials said the extended holiday and curated programme aim to present authentic New Year customs and the warm hospitality of local residents, and they invited visitors from near and far to take part in these millennium-old Chinese traditions.

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