Taiwan: Lantern Festival: When is it?

Taiwan: Lantern Festival: February 20, 2027–February 21, 2027.

How does Taiwan mark Lantern Festival?

臺東炮炸寒單爺

Local date: February 20, 2027–February 21, 2027
When is it?: The 15th and 16th day of the first lunar month, Taitung City

Taitung's bombardment of Master Handan is fixed to the fifteenth and sixteenth days of the first lunar month. It arose in Taitung City around 1951: in 1949 residents brought three statues, including Handan, up from the south and kept them in a private home, with worshippers taking turns to host them — no temple was ever built. Who Handan is has several accounts: the martial god of wealth Zhao Gongming; a local strongman taking the firecrackers as atonement; or a plague god to be driven off with them. The practice disappeared elsewhere in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period, leaving Taitung as the only postwar survival, listed as folk cultural heritage of Taitung County in 2007.

元宵節（上元節）

Local date: February 20, 2027
When is it?: The 15th day of the first lunar month.

In Taiwan the Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month and closes the lunar new-year season. The common parts are eating tangyuan, carrying lanterns, guessing lantern riddles, and visiting a city or county lantern display. It is not a public holiday, so most people work or attend school as usual and the festival happens after hours and at weekends. How far people take it varies: one pot of tangyuan for some, a cross-county trip for others. The lantern night closes the whole stretch of the lunar new year: once the fifteenth of the first month has passed, the year is properly over, work resumes and school starts. It is not a day off, yet it is the evening on which the whole island lights up at once — beyond carrying lanterns, guessing lantern riddles and eating the round dumplings, the national lantern festival is hosted by a different county or city each year, so where it is this year is a question that has to be asked afresh every time.

平溪天燈節

Local date: February 20, 2027
When is it?: One or two days before or after the Lantern Festival, in the Shifen and Jingtong areas of Pingxi District, New Taipei City.

Sky lanterns are released in Pingxi, New Taipei, within a day or two of the Lantern Festival, concentrated in the Jingtong, Pingxi, and Shifen areas. Each lantern is a bamboo frame covered in paper, lifted by hot air from burning joss paper, and people usually brush a wish onto the paper before letting go. The lanterns began as safety signals and only later became a wish-making rite. The Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival was registered as intangible cultural heritage of New Taipei City in 2008.

鹽水蜂炮

Local date: February 19, 2027–February 20, 2027
When is it?: The 14th to 15th day of the first lunar month, Wumiao Temple procession in Yanshui District, Tainan City

In Yanshui, Tainan, the 'beehive fireworks' run on the 14th and 15th of the first lunar month, centred on a procession from the Yanshui Wu Temple. It traces back to a cholera outbreak in 1885, when local merchants and worshippers resolved to carry the palanquin of Guan Sheng Dijun through the streets and drive out the plague with firecracker smoke. Residents build 'fireworks fortresses' packed with rockets; once lit, the rockets fly in every direction while the palanquin turns inside the sparks. It was registered as a local folk custom in 2008.

What is this topic?

The same lunar date is three different scenes in Taiwan alone — eating tangyuan and walking through a lantern display, releasing sky lanterns in Pingxi, or standing inside a wall of exploding fireworks in Yanshui — while in mainland China it is a working day, not one of the days off for all citizens. This page compares ritual intensity and civic status under one calendar date.

Sources and dates

Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.