Owing to the long and cold winter, Harbin is one of the most popular tourist cities for winter tours in China. During the winter period, thousands of tourists from home and abroad come to see the beautiful snow carvings, ice lanterns and enjoy the snow recreations. And one of the things must do is to take part in the Harbin Ice Festival.

In the northeast China, use the ice lanterns is a tradition during winter period. According to the records, the local peasants and fishermen created and widely used the ice lanterns in the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911). In the early times, the ice lanterns were made very simply without any designs and patterns, just pouring the water into a bucket and then put it out and wait to freeze.

Harbin Ice Festival starting from January 5th every year is the first international festival of China that themed at the ice and snow activities. The festival mainly consists of four parts held in four different places including the most famous Ice Lantern Garden in Zhaolin Park, the Great Snow and Ice World by the Songhua River, the Snow Sculpture Exposition in the Sun Island Park and the Large-scale Ice Sculpture Exhibition in Stalin Park. Besides these main activities, there are also many other exciting entertainments, such as the winter swimming contest, hockey contest, snowfield football game, alpine skiing invitation tournament, ice engraving competition, ice and snow photo show, ice wedding, etc. With so many exciting activities, there is no doubt that every visitor will enjoy a happy time during the Ice Festival.

Every year during the period of the Ice Festival, a lot of ice sculpture experts, artists and fans from different countries are gathering in Harbin to take part in the ice sculpting competitions and to communicate with each other in the pure white world. So the Ice Festival today is not only an exposition of ice and snow art, but also an worldwide cultural exchange. Also, Harbin ice lanterns have been exhibited in most of the main cities in China as well as in foreign countries.

For more than 40 years, the Ice Festival has become a landmark of Harbin City and the symbol of China winter tour. One reason to visit Harbin during the cold winter is to see the world-class ice festival.