Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival

Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival

The Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival are the world's biggest Snow and Ice Festival which is celebrated every year during the winter in China. This is an annual festival that takes place in China's northeast Heilongjiang province.

Harbin is a city that is located in Northeast China and since it receives cold winter wind from Siberia this city has thick snowfall. The average temperature in summer in this province is 21.2 C and -16.8 C in winter and the temperature gets lows of -25 are common here.

Initially, this festival was attended by Chinese people, however, in the year 2018, this festival had an international tourist attraction and this snow and ice festival was attended by 18 million visitors. This festival includes the world's biggest ice sculptures.

Officially, this snow and ice festival is celebrated on 5th January and lasts for one month. But this exhibition lasts for more than a month unless the weather conditions permit. The ice sculptures are erected throughout three main exhibition areas in China, they are Sun Island and Ice and Snow World and Zhaolin Park

Sun Island: This is a recreational area that is present on the opposite side of the Songhua River from the city featuring an expo of enormous snow sculptures.

Ice and Snow World: This is a park that is opened from late December to late February. This features illuminated sculptures of about 2-3' thick ice that is taken directly from the Songhua River. In 1999, the first snow and ice festival was opened to the public to celebrate the millennium.

Zhaolin Park: Zhaolin Park is another festival venue but it displays 1000 smaller ice sculptures and ice lanterns as part of the competition held. Though it is not that grand and stunning like the other two places, people still visit this park to view the artworks.

During this festival, there are some amazing touring activities held in many parks in the city. Some of the winter activities during this snow and ice festival include winter-swimming in the Songhua River, the ice-lantern exhibition in Zhaolin Garden, and Yabuli alpine skiing. It seems more than 10,000 workers work together to cut and haul the ice blocks for this festival.

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History

This festival originated in Harbin's traditional ice lantern show and garden party, in 1963 during Winter, but it was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution in China. After that, this festival celebration was resumed during an annual event that took place in Zhaolin Park on January 5, 1985. Since then, this festival is celebrated continuously.

In 2001, the Harbin Ice Festival name was merged along with Heilongjiang's International Ski Festival and it was named the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival.

In 2007, this Harbin Snow and Ice Festival's theme was sculpted in the memory of Canadian doctor Norman Bethune. This festival holds the Guinness record for the world's largest snow sculpture created and the sculpture was 250 meters long and 28 feet high.

In 2014, this festival celebrated its 30th anniversary and the theme was "50-year ice snow, Charming Harbin". In 2015, the Harbin ice festival was themed as Ice Snow Harbin, Charming China Dreams around the world.

In 2019, artists from 12 different countries participated in the annual sculpting competition at the festival.

Harbin is one of the world's coldest cities. The main thing which distinguishes Harbin from other cold cities is the population. More than 1 crore people live in this coldest place and it is a major metropolis.

Wrapping Up

This was all about the world’s biggest snow and ice festival which takes place in Harbin, China. You must also know that this snow festival is also celebrated in some countries like Korea, Japan, Canada, but the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival is the most famous among them and it has visitors for more than 31 years.

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If you get a chance to visit this amazing place, do take care of your expensive electronic items. This is because the temperature is too cold that it damages the electronics. Be careful!!

Harbin Ice and Snow Festival Images