When one mentions the word lanterns, understandable concerns about the environment usually follow. Where would the lanterns land? Who would clean up the debris? Questions regarding the environmental impact of the recent Lantern Festival in Tainan, a city in southern Taiwan, should be put to rest. The festival is now in its thirty-fifth year and is staged as part of the sustainable tourism program run by the Taiwan Tourism Administration (TTA). Instead of sending lanterns soaring into the sky, the Lantern Festival features a variety of colorful, artistically designed, and LED-lit lanterns that remain fixed on land—displayed beautifully throughout the festival's duration that lasted a couple of months.
Taiwan’s Lantern Festival Transforms Tainan into a Wonderland of Lights
To sum it up, it's one glittery, eye-catching extravaganza.
What to Know About Taiwan’s Lantern Festival
Not to be confused with the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival, which is held in conjunction with the Lantern Festival every year in Taiwan, the main Lantern Festival held its inaugural event in 1990. While the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival invites controversy because of the lanterns released into the sky, it is also steeped in ancient traditions and has made considerable efforts over the past several years to make the event more environmentally friendly.
The primary Lantern Festival, meanwhile, only features modern lanterns laid out stationary on pedestals, seamlessly merging contemporary pop culture with traditional Taiwanese folk art figures and Chinese zodiac signs.
The Lantern Festival revelry starts every fifteenth day of the first month of the Lunar Year, which in the Gregorian calendar falls into either January or February. A different city in Taiwan is chosen to host the massive festival every year.
This Year’s Host City and Theme
The thirty-fifth Lantern Festival host is the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan. It has been sixteen years since Tainan last hosted the Lantern Festival, but this year made it extra special as the city is also celebrating its four hundredth anniversary, making the occasion doubly celebratory.
Highlighting Tainan's varied culture, historical inventions, and position as a national leader in green energy, this year's lantern festival is themed "Glorious Tainan."
Renowned artist Peng Li-chen drew inspiration from the flying dragons found on the pillars of Tainan's Grand Mazu Temple—also known as the Great Queen of Heaven Temple—to create the seventy-two-foot "Dragon Comes to Taiwan" lantern, which served as the festival's centerpiece attraction marking the "Year of the Dragon" in 2024.
Two main exhibition sections, the "High-Speed Rail Lantern Area" and the "Anping Lantern Area," displayed more than three hundred pieces of lantern art to complete this year’s Lantern Festival. Included in the "High-Speed Rail Lantern Area" are seven expansive exhibition zones surrounding the high-speed rail station. These zones showcase a variety of themed lantern regions, anchored by the main "Dragon Comes to Taiwan" display.
Why the Lantern Festival is Celebrated in Taiwan
Dating back many centuries, every fifteenth day of the lunar calendar, many Chinese villages celebrate the Lantern Festival, which is also called "Little New Year." Fireworks, illuminated lanterns, and temple visits to see festive displays are all traditional parts of this significant New Year's folk festival.
The event is seen as promoting a scene of togetherness and happiness while representing national wealth and harmony. The primary topic of the massive festival lanterns is based on the Chinese zodiac sign of the year, drawing deeply from traditional culture.
Introducing This Year’s Lantern Art Pieces
Named as one of the “World's Best Festivals,” it came as no surprise when the 2024 Lantern Festival in Tainan attracted more than two hundred twenty thousand visitors during the testing demo alone. Throughout the more than two-week event, that number has further skyrocketed.
More than three hundred lantern art pieces were put on display on the grounds of Anping Recreational Wharf and Tainan's High-Speed Rail station. Because the solar energy photovoltaic business in Tainan is world-renowned, and in keeping with the lantern festival's emphasis on eco-friendly practices, this year's featured lanterns used solar energy components like EVA and environmentally friendly materials like carbon 60.
Incorporating naked-eye 3D technology for the first time, the themed lantern designs combined diverse media materials, highlighting Taiwan's unique geographical features and connecting ecology to tourist attractions.
The featured lantern art pieces represented an array of figures, from dragons and pirates to iconic characters from Taiwanese pop culture, such as the Formosan Black Bear and Black-Faced Spoonbill, as well as Western figures like Spongebob—all to the endless delight of the spectators and guests who traveled to Tainan to witness this year’s massive event.
This early, the Taiwan Tourism Administration (TTA) is already promising a bigger and even more extravagant Lantern Festival in 2025. See you all at next year’s festival.
