Where is the lunar new year celebrated and who celebrates it?

The Lunar New Year begins Jan. 29, and communities across the United States and worldwide are holding celebrations. 

China’s most important holiday — the Lunar New Year is also widely celebrated in South Korea, Vietnam and other countries where Chinese residents make up significant parts of the national population, according to the National Museum of Asian Art. 

In the Chinese zodiac, each new year, according to the lunar calendar, is associated with one of 12 animals, and 2025 marks the Year of the Snake. Different regions in Asia may not follow the same zodiac observed in China, and many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders do not observe the Chinese zodiac, said the art museum. 

What is the Lunar New Year?

Lunar New Year begins on the lunar calendar’s first new moon and continues through the first full moon, which falls 15 days later. 

The new moon usually happens at some point between mid-January and early February — so the start of the new year begins different days depending on the year.

Each year in the lunar cycle is associated with a particular animal, like the ox, the tiger, the rabbit or, as it was last year, the dragon. The Year of the Snake represents a period of transformation, introspection and growth, according to the Chinese Language Institute. 

The lunar calendar, unlike the Gregorian calendar, uses the phases of the moon to delineate days, weeks and months of the year. A lunar month is the period of time from one new moon to the next — about 29.5 days — so the lunar calendar doesn’t precisely align with the common one where most months span 30 or 31 days. 

The Chinese government officially adopted the solar Gregorian calendar more than a century ago to align with the rest of the world. Chinese communities have since celebrated both the start of the Gregorian year on Jan. 1 and then the Lunar New Year, a reflection of cultural roots, some weeks afterward. 

The Lunar New Year is also known as the Spring Festival in China, as a nod to the upcoming spring season. In Vietnam, the holiday is known as Tet, and, in Korea, it’s called Seollal. 

How to celebrate Lunar New Year

Commemorated through 15 days of cultural festivities, Lunar New Year activities are often centered around various forms of art and cuisine, which can be enjoyed at home and in public forums. Experts say the core focus of Lunar New Year celebrations is to bring families together. 

Mario Poceski, a professor of Buddhist studies and Chinese religions at the University of Florida who wrote about Lunar New Year celebrations in The Conversation last year, said holiday traditions typically involve cleaning and decorating the house, shopping for gifts and preparing food for family gatherings, like a traditional dinner held on the eve of the new year.

“Many of the dishes are assigned symbolic meanings,” Poceski wrote. “For instance, dumplings are given the shape of gold ingots to invoke good fortune.”

Exchanging red envelopes, which contain money, is another popular custom that’s carried out each Lunar New Year. The envelopes’ red color is featured prominently in decorations for the holiday and represents prosperity and good fortune, Poceski said, adding that older members of the family usually gift them to younger members.

Parades, carnivals and gatherings featuring fireworks, dances and other cultural performances are often staples of Lunar New Year celebrations, as individual residences, shops and markets decorate with lanterns or dragons made from red paper in honor of the holiday.

In Beijing, crowds of people filled a park for a “temple fair” Wednesday, with some ringing bells and tossing coins into containers shaped like gold bars for good luck, the Associated Press reported. 

In Malaysia, revelers rang in the new year with firecrackers in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city, while Russians cheered for a musical procession in Moscow Tuesday night that commenced a 10-day Lunar New Year festival, according to the AP.

One of many U.S. cities paying homage to the holiday, businesses in Denver kicked off the Lunar New Year with spreads of traditional cuisine and merchandise.

“To celebrate the cultural side, the celebration of just welcoming in a new year, a vibrant year full of good luck and change,” Mimi Luong, the co-owner of Denver gift shop Truong An Gifts, told CBS News Colorado this week of her family’s celebrations and the store’s public observance. 

“Every year, we celebrate with decorating our home with lots of red and gold, and eating long noodles so we can have long life, and dumplings so we can have abundance,” Luong said.

Lunar New Year celebrations traditionally culminate in the Lantern Festival, a massive procession of lights held everywhere from Zigong, China, to Franklin Square in Philadelphia.