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The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节 - Zhongqiujie), known as the Moon Festival, is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month under the brightest full moon of the autumn season. Revered across East and Southeast Asia as a festival of harvest Thanksgiving and family completeness (团圆 - Tuanyuan), Mid-Autumn connects ancient lunar mythology, exquisite confectionery craftsmanship, and poetic contemplation.
The roots of Mid-Autumn extend to the Zhou Dynasty's autumnal equinox sacrifices to the Moon (祭月). The festival's romantic essence is immortalized in the legend of Chang'e (嫦娥), who consumed the celestial elixir of life and floated to the Moon, where she resides in the crystalline Guanghan Palace alongside the selfless Jade Rabbit (玉兔) pounding herbal medicine.
Her husband, the master archer Hou Yi, set out tables of sweet fruits and pastries in the garden under the full moon to honor his beloved wife—a tradition that evolved into nationwide lunar veneration.
The undisputed culinary symbol of the festival is the Mooncake (月饼), whose round shape mirrors the full moon and familial completeness. Master pastry chefs craft rich Cantonese mooncakes filled with white lotus seed paste and golden salted duck egg yolks representing the moon, flaky savory Suzhou pastry mooncakes, Yunnan ham mooncakes, and refreshing modern chilled snowskin (bingpi) varieties.
On festival night, families assemble on outdoor balconies and parks to gaze at the silver moon (Shang Yue), enjoying fragrant cups of sweet osmanthus flower wine, hot oolong tea, and seasonal sweet pomelos. In Hong Kong's Tai Hang district, the famous 67-meter Fire Dragon Dance blazes with thousands of incense sticks, while thousands of children across Guangdong and Singapore light colorful rabbit and paper lanterns under the night sky.
Mid-Autumn continues to inspire timeless reflections on distance and love, echoing the Song dynasty verse of poet Su Shi: 'May we all be blessed with longevity, though miles apart, we share the beauty of the moon together.' From Tokyo's Tsukimi to Seoul's Chuseok, the full moon unites millions across the globe in gratitude and joy.
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Mid-Autumn Festival 2027 is scheduled for September 15, 2027. The countdown timer at the top of the page updates the days remaining in real time.
The Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon Festival / Mooncake Festival) is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month under the autumn harvest full moon. Dating back over 3,000 years to Moon worship in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, it symbolizes family reunion (团圆), gratitude for the agricultural harvest, and lunar appreciation.
Mythology tells of the legendary archer Hou Yi, who shot down nine scorching suns to save humanity and was gifted the elixir of immortality. To prevent the elixir from falling into the hands of a villainous apprentice, Hou Yi's beloved wife Chang'e drank it, ascending to the celestial Moon alongside the Jade Rabbit (玉兔) pounding medicinal herbs in the Moon Palace (Guanghan Palace).
Round mooncakes symbolize complete familial harmony and unity (团圆). Traditional styles include Cantonese mooncakes (golden baked pastry filled with lotus seed paste and salted duck egg yolks), Suzhou flaky pastry mooncakes (stuffed with savory pork or sweet red bean), and modern chilled snowskin (bingpi) mooncakes.
According to popular folk lore, during the late Yuan Dynasty, rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang and his strategist Liu Bowen organized a widespread Han uprising by concealing secret messages reading 'Kill the barbarians on the 15th night of the 8th month' inside distributed mooncakes, successfully toppling the Mongol rulers.
Families gather in gardens, rooftops, and parks on Mid-Autumn night to gaze at the luminous full moon, sipping fragrant sweet-scented osmanthus wine and green tea while savoring fresh seasonal harvest fruits including pomelos, persimmons, pomegranates, and hairy crabs.
Particularly in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Guangdong, and Singapore, children and families carry colorful paper and cellophane lanterns shaped like rabbits, carps, and starfruit. Streets and botanical gardens (such as Victoria Park in Hong Kong and Gardens by the Bay in Singapore) stage spectacular illuminated lantern carnivals.
Dating back to 1880 to banish a plague, the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance is a celebrated Intangible Cultural Heritage ritual. Over 300 neighborhood performers navigate a 67-meter-long dragon braided from straw and embedded with tens of thousands of burning incense sticks through the streets of Tai Hang over three nights.
The festival is celebrated as Tsukimi (月见 - Moon Viewing) with rice dango in Japan, Chuseok in Korea with songpyeon, and Tết Trung Thu (Children's Festival) in Vietnam with lion dances and star lanterns.
Scholars and poets historically composed timeless verses under the harvest moon, such as Su Shi's immortal Song dynasty poem: 'May we all be blessed with longevity, though miles apart, we share the beauty of the moon together' (但愿人长久，千里共婵娟). Communities hang wooden riddles beneath lanterns for children to solve.
Yes, Mid-Autumn Festival is a statutory national public holiday across mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, often conjoined with adjoining weekends or National Day Golden Week to provide extended family reunion holiday time.