Harbin, “a place for drying fishing nets”, grew from a small rural settlement on the Songhua River to become one of the largest cities in Northeast China. Since 1985, the annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival has became the most important event in this northern city and attracted lots of tourists. It is one of the four largest ice and snow festivals in the world, along with Japan’s Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada’s Quebec City Winter Carnival, and Norway’s Ski Festival.

Official start date of the Festival is January 5th each year. While there are ice sculptures throughout the city, there are two main exhibition areas: Enormous snow sculptures at Sun Island and the separate “Ice and Snow World” that operates each night. A ice lantern garden party will be hosted in Zhaolin Park with nearly 1500 sculptures decorated by the colorful light shining in the dark. The design of sculpture and theme will change each year. It could be everything like the world-famous attractions or legendary animal.

Every November, the city of Harbin sends teams of ice artisans to the United States to promote their unique art form. It takes more than 100 artisans to create ICE!, the annual display of indoor Christmas-themed ice carvings in National Harbor, Maryland; Nashville, Tennessee; Kissimmee, Florida; and Grapevine, Texas.

Things to do

• Visit Harbin Ice and Snow Amusement World, the snow carving and ice/snow recreations are world famous.
• Take photo in Zhongyang Pedestrian Street
• Visit Sun island, strolling around Sun Island during the Ice and Snow Festival is like walking through the pages of C. S. Lewis’ Narnia
• Spend a day in Harbin Pole Aquarium
• Visit Sophia Square
• Enjoy and relax in Harbin Forest Botanical Garden

How to get there

• By Railway: Harbin is the second largest railway hub in Northeast China
• By Highway: China National Highway 221
• By Airport: Harbin Taiping International Airport which is 35 kilometers away from the urban area of Harbin
  
• By Ports and waterways: There are more than 1,900 rivers in Heilongjiang, including the Songhua River, Heilongjiang River and Wusulijiang River, creating a convenient system of waterway transportation.