Chinese lunar new year

what is chinese new year

Chinese New Year is Chunjie, the civil name Spring Festival. It is the first morning of lunar month one, after the new moon that opens the year. On the Gregorian chart it lands between late January and mid-February. Tuesday 17 February 2026 was that first day, and a Horse year began. On Thursday 3 September 2026 that morning is gone. Saturday 6 February 2027 opens a Goat year (Sheep in some English lists), one hundred and fifty-six days from this Thursday.

Is today Chinese New Year only if today is that lunar first day in the conversion you are using. Today, 3 September 2026, the answer is no. The shorter search “is today China New Year” is the same clock with one adjective trimmed. China New Year and Chinese New Year are one festival in ordinary English search. They are not 1 January. They are not Mid-Autumn. The evening before the first day is reunion night. The old festival stretch runs to the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth night: Tuesday 3 March 2026 that year, and Saturday 20 February 2027 next year.

Work and school in China still number the year in Gregorian figures. 2026 began on 1 January for passports and tickets. The animal year turned on 17 February. Before that new moon, January 2026 was still Snake on the cycle. After 6 February 2027 it will be Goat. You can keep both clocks. You cannot move dumplings to 31 December and call the lunar year begun.

Lunar New Year versus Chinese New Year

Lunar New Year is an umbrella in public English. It can mean the Chinese Spring Festival. It can also mean other new years that follow a related East Asian lunisolar moon, especially Korean Seollal and Vietnamese Tết. Those often share the same new moon and still keep their own names, foods, greetings, and household rules. Calling Tết a failed Chinese New Year is a caption error. Calling Seollal “Chinese” because the moon matches is the same error in a colder climate.

Not every Asian new year rides that moon. Tibetan Losar can fall on a different calculation. Mongolian Tsagaan Sar is its own festival. Persian Nowruz is a solar new year at the March equinox, not a lunar first day. A school poster that prints one red lantern and writes “Lunar New Year = Chinese New Year = all of Asia” has flattened three or four clocks into a decoration. If you are greeting someone, use the name they keep: Spring Festival, Seollal, Tết, Losar, Nowruz. The kindness is dated and named.

Chinese New Year / Spring Festival 2026: 17 February (past). 2027: 6 February. Animal year now, 3 September 2026: Horse, until 5 February 2027. Seollal and Tết: related moons, different festivals, not spare Chinese names.

1 January: civil Gregorian new year, a separate midwinter date. Lantern Festival: fifteenth night, 3 March 2026; 20 February 2027. Sharing a new moon is not the same as sharing a table. Lunar New Year is a family of mornings. Chinese New Year is one of them.

Which words to put on the card

If the household is Chinese or keeping Chunjie, Chinese New Year and Spring Festival are the right names. Lunar New Year is acceptable public English in mixed cities, especially on a banner meant to include Korean and Vietnamese neighbours in the same week. It is a courtesy umbrella. It is not a translation that erases Chunjie. If the household is Korean, write Seollal. If Vietnamese, write Tết. Do not correct their tray into a dumpling you already understand.

Public holiday weeks in China around Spring Festival are a State Council arrangement for that year, with swapped rest days and make-up workdays. Those extra Mondays are labour math. They do not create a second new year. Neighbouring countries set their own leave. A closed counter in Beijing does not close Seoul by sympathy. From 3 September 2026, plan the next Chinese first day as 6 February 2027. Confirm Seollal and Tết on their own notices if those are the tables you were invited to.