On the night of the Lantern Festival, Taiwan celebrates at both ends of the island — sky lanterns carrying wishes rise over the hills of Pingxi in the north, while in Yanshui in the south thousands of bottle rockets are fired at crowds in helmets.
Photo: Jirka Matousek, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Lantern Festival, on the 15th day of the first lunar month, is also known as the “little New Year”. Taiwan’s Tourism Administration describes its customs as worshipping the gods, guessing lantern riddles, eating rice-flour dumplings and releasing lanterns into the sky. A popular saying sums up its two most famous celebrations: “sky lanterns in the north, beehive rockets in the south”.
Both festivals in this atlas follow the lunar calendar, so they fall between early February and early March.
鹽水蜂炮
On the 14th and 15th nights of the first lunar month, the palanquin of Guan Di, the god of war, tours the streets of Yanshui, and from doorways along the way racks of bottle rockets are fired towards it — and into the crowd in helmets that follows.
February 19 – 20, 2027Calculated
平溪天燈節
Around the Lantern Festival, thousands of paper lanterns inscribed with wishes rise into the night sky over the hill town of Pingxi — a custom that began as a signal to villagers hiding from bandits that it was safe to come home.
February 20, 2027Calculated