By Shantini Mogan
28th Jan 2025 : The Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival or Chunjie, is celebrated worldwide and marks the largest annual human migration in the world. Millions of people travel to reunite with their families during this festival. The Chunyun period, a 40-day travel season leading up to the Lunar New Year, sees an astonishing number of journeys. In China alone, Chunyun accounted for nearly 3 billion trips annually before the pandemic, placing immense pressure on the country’s transportation systems.
The Year of the Dragon in 2024 saw record-breaking travel figures, with approximately 9 billion journeys made globally between January 26 and March 6. On peak days, around 232 million trips occurred, underscoring the scale of this massive migration. By comparison, in 2019, the number of trips during this period was 2.98 billion, showing a significant post-pandemic rebound.
When compared to other major travel periods, such as Thanksgiving in the United States or the summer holiday rush in Europe, Lunar New Year eclipses them in scale. It is a uniquely intense phenomenon, particularly in Asia, where family reunions and traditional celebrations drive this extraordinary movement. In 2023, nearly 6.7 million people traveled to Malaysia alone for Chinese New Year, highlighting its global impact. This unparalleled migration underscores the cultural significance and logistical challenges of the Lunar New Year celebrations.
