Chinese New Year: A round-up of recent Spring Festival-themed world records set in China

Chinese New Year celebrations kick off on Friday and millions of people from all over the globe will be taking part in the traditional festivities.

This year is the year of the Rooster, the tenth animal in the 12-year cycle of Chinese zodiac sign.

In China, Lunar New Year events usually go on for two weeks and see people indulging in the delicious ceremonial dish Laba congee, cleaning the house to sweep away bad fortune, travelling home to share dinner with the whole family and celebrating the Lantern Festival.

In honour of the occasion, our colleagues from the Guinness World Records Beijing headquarters have selected their favourite Chinese New Year-themed records as well as some impressive recent titles that have been achieved over the past few weeks.

Largest annual human migration

In China it is tradition for people to travel home to their families in order to celebrate the winter Lunar New Year.

The rapid industrial development of China over the last half century has led to much of its current population, of around 1.3 billion, living in industrial cities far from their rural family homes.

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In 2010, a record 2.26 billion rail journeys were made in China over this 40-day period.

Most watched national network TV broadcast (reach)

Watching the annual Spring Festival Gala variety show on CCTV has become a staple activity for people in China to do on Chinese New Year since it debuted in 1983.

It achieved a Guinness World Records title in 2012 when the show had a unique reach of 498,659,000 across CCTV-1, 3 and 4.

During last year's broadcast, a record for the Most robots dancing simultaneously was achieved, as an incredible 540 machines proved to be perfectly in sync backing dancers for famous Chinese singer Sun Nan. (The record has since been broken).

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Largest human image of a Chinese character/kanji

Earlier this month, 3,128 people wearing red formed the character 福 (pronounced “fú”) and set a new world record.

The attempt took place in the ancient capital of in Xi’an in Shaanxi and was organised by Xi’an Ziwei Real Estate Development Co., Ltd as part of their forthcoming Spring Festival celebrations.

The character they formed means good fortune, happiness or luck.

Largest waist drum dance

Over in Yan’an, 1,178 participants took part in a record-breaking performance of the traditional folk dance.

The attempt was arranged by Yan’an Holly Land Valley Cultural Tourism Industrial Park as part of the opening ceremony for a commercial street at the beginning of January.

Largest envelope mosaic

It is traditional for kids to be given red envelopes containing “lucky money” and good wishes on Chinese New Year’s Day.

On 11 January, a 64 m² (688.89 ft²) envelope mosaic was unveiled in Beijing, created by Feihe International Inc. and China Women's Development Foundation.

The mosaic took more than 40 people over 7 hours to complete and consisted of approximately 60,000 red and yellow envelopes.

Longest floating walkway

On 30 December, Chengdu VENI Tourism Development Corp. and Shanghai Qihua Water Engineering Construction Co., Ltd opened a 5.13 km (3.19 miles) long floating walkway in Luodian, Guizhou, China.

It is made out of individual interlocking plastic blocks and held in place by anchors spread across the structure.

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Why not celebrate Chinese New Year by attempting our Spring Festival-related record challenges? Find out more.