Hundreds of millions gathered Wednesday in homes and crowded festivals to mark the beginning of the Chinese lunar calendar new year, ringing in the Year of the Snake with feasts, dances, firework shows and traditional festivals.

What Is The Lunar New Year?

The Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year, celebrates the start of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. The first day of the Chinese New Year is marked by the first new moon that appears between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20 and it's marked by a series of customs and traditions. 

How Is The Chinese New Year Celebrated?

Chinese households are thoroughly cleaned before the official start of the holiday to rid the home of the previous year's bad luck and usher in good luck for the coming year. Red, the color of joy and good fortune in Chinese culture, starts to appear on freshly painted doors, in decorations and in lanterns hung across the country. Formal celebrations typically start with a family reunion and dinner the night before the new year, and new years day is marked by large gatherings of family and friends who give oranges, gifts and red envelopes of money to mark the occasion. Public celebrations include festivals with lion dances, firework shows, prayers for prosperity and feasts including traditional holiday foods like sweet and sour pork, shrimp, dumplings, spring rolls, tangerines and whole fish. The fifteenth day of the new year is celebrated as the Lantern Festival.

Who Celebrates The Lunar New Year?

The occasion is one of the largest and most attended of any in Chinese culture and it's also celebrated in Vietnam, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore, among other countries.