Topic: Mid-Autumn and Moon Viewing
How does China mark Mid-Autumn and Moon Viewing?
中秋节
- Local date
- September 25, 2026
- When is it?
- The 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar; the Gregorian date differs each year
Mainland China lists Mid-Autumn among the days off for all citizens, and the State Council published it in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage in 2006. The register records far more than mooncakes: the legends of the moon, Chang'e, the jade rabbit and Wu Gang; moon-offering rites; offerings for the earth god's birthday; divination; the gift of a melon as a wish for children; and moon viewing, cricket fighting and keeping katydids on autumn nights. It also carries a long list of alternative names — Moon Evening, Moon-Chasing Festival, Moon-Worship Festival, Daughters' Festival, Reunion Festival — each stressing something different.
中秋节（秋夕）· 延边朝鲜族
- Local date
- September 25, 2026
- When is it?
- Around the 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar; the festival period can last several days
There is more than one way to keep the day inside China. 'Mid-Autumn Festival (Chuseok)' of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin was listed separately in the third national batch in 2011, under the code X-5. For the Korean-ethnic community Chuseok begins with the graves: cleaning the tomb site and making offerings comes first, then an ox is slaughtered and wine prepared, freshly harvested grain is made into rice cake and pine-needle cake, and swings, seesaw and wrestling follow, over a season that can run several days. Same full moon, but the entrance is the cemetery rather than the mooncake.
What is this topic?
Around the same full moon, four different observances: Taiwan and mainland China take the day off, eat mooncakes, and gather as a family; the Korean-ethnic community of Yanbian in China keeps it as Chuseok, where tomb-sweeping comes first; and Japan does not close at all, treating it as an astronomical and seasonal night — where the national observatory is explicit that the 'harvest moon' is often not that night's full moon.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.