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Next: 21 Feb 2027

Lantern Festival

The fifteenth night of the new year: lantern displays and riddles, glutinous rice balls and the end of the holiday.

Lantern Festival
Photo: -Zest, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When is Lantern Festival in 2027?

Lantern Festival 2027 is on Sunday, 21 February 2027. Other years: 2026, Tuesday, 3 March 2026; 2028, Wednesday, 9 February 2028.

About Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival closes the Lunar New Year season on the first full moon of the year. Streets, parks and temples are hung with lanterns in the shape of animals, flowers and legendary figures, some of them enormous and hand-made from silk and bamboo. People walk with children carrying lanterns, solve riddles written on slips of paper attached to them, and watch dragon and lion dances. The seasonal food is tangyuan, or yuanxiao in the north, round glutinous rice balls with sweet fillings of sesame, red bean or peanut, in sweet soup. Their roundness stands for family togetherness. In Taiwan, the Pingxi sky lantern festival releases hundreds of paper lanterns, each with a wish written on it.

Lantern Festival dates: 2026, 2027, 2028

YearLantern Festival date
2026Tuesday, 3 March 2026
2027Sunday, 21 February 2027
2028Wednesday, 9 February 2028

What is eaten

  • tangyuan
  • yuanxiao

Also part of it, and being written: Tangyuan (The round rice dumplings of the night.), Pingxi sky lantern festival (The Taiwanese lantern release.), Lantern riddle (The riddles written on lanterns.).

More marked on Lantern Festival

🇮🇳 India and 4 moreWater lantern Small lamps floated on water to honour the dead and ask for good fortuneFestival 🇨🇳 China and 3 moreDragon dance舞龍 / 舞龙 A long dragon puppet on poles, danced by a team at Chinese New Year and other festivalsPerformance
About this page

Written by the EveryParampara desk with AI assistance. Background: "Lantern Festival" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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