China's Mass Migration Home for Lunar New Year in Pictures

January 30th, 2014 by Bette Ha

A railway station is packed with passengers on January 28, 2014 in Guangzhou, China. (Theodore Kaye/Getty Images)

Mechanics perform a check on a high-speed train as railways across China prepare for the holiday rush on January 7, 2014 in Xi'an, China. (ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

A Buddhist monk waits for his train at the railway station before making the long journey home on January 28, 2014 in Shenzhen, China. (Theodore Kaye/Getty Images)

Instead of waiting inside of train and bus stations overflowing with passengers eager to get home, some people decide to pass time outside on January 28, 2014 in Guangzhou, China. (Theodore Kaye/Getty Images)

A man looks out of a crowded train on January 23, 2014 in Beijing, China. (Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images)

Paramilitary policeman sleep on the floors of a railway station on January 26, 2014 in Beijing, China. (ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images))

Passengers prepare to board the trains that will eventually take them home for the Spring Festival on January 26, 2014 in Beijing, China. (ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

A toddler waves a train ticket, excited to be part of the world's largest human migration. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Enlarge Hide captions

Celebrate the Lunar New Year with Asia Society at one of our many events! Check the global calendar here.

Tonight, billions of Chinese will feast and light fireworks in honor of Lunar New Year. Traditionally, this holiday is celebrated while surrounded by family — and many travel great distances to be with the ones they love.

Known as the largest human migration, over three billion people take to the rails during Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival. Many are migrant workers who left their rural hometowns in search of employment in larger cities. The race to get home started long ago, with train tickets selling out months in advance. The journey home is infamously arduous and passengers face overcrowded railway stations and cramped train quarters.

China's largest search engine, Baidu, recently created Baidu Migrate, a map that visualizes the routes that people are taking to get home. It is self-updated every eight hours and shows not only the overlaying routes and migration patterns, but also lists migration trends to and from major cities. According to the map, Beijing has the highest number of people leaving the city, but it is also the most popular destination. This interactive map also allows you to analyze where the arrivals are coming from, with the highest percentage of Beijing-bound passengers coming from Tianjin. The most frequent route so far is from Chengdu to Beijing.

Asia Society invites you and your family to ring in this Year of the Wooden Horse on February 1, 2014 in New York with lion dances and kung-fu demonstrations, two select short films from the "1001 Nights Series," and traditional crafts such as Tibetan butter sculpture and Chinese paper cutting.