Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival
During the 2003 festival
Genre	Winter festival
Location(s)	Harbin, China
Years active	1963–present

The Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival (Chinese: 哈尔滨国际冰雪节; pinyin: Hā'ěrbīn Guójì Bīngxuě Jié) is a huge yearly winter festival in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China. It is now the biggest ice and snow festival in the world!

A very popular part of the festival is called Ice and Snow World (冰雪大世界). At first, mostly Chinese people visited the festival. But now, it's a big international event and competition. Millions of visitors come each year to see the world's largest ice sculptures.

The festival usually opens from late December to late February. You can find amazing ice sculptures all over the city. But there are two main places where the biggest displays are:

• Sun Island is a fun area across the Songhua River from the city. Here, you can see huge snow sculptures.
• Ice and Snow World (冰雪大世界) opens in the afternoon and at night. It features giant buildings made from thick blocks of ice. These ice blocks are taken right from the Songhua River. The park usually opens from late December to late February. The first Ice and Snow World opened in 1999 to celebrate the new millennium. Each year, the park is rebuilt with new designs for its ice buildings and sculptures. In recent years, this park has been as big as 800,000 square meters (about 80 football fields!).

During the festival, you can also enjoy ice lantern shows in many city parks. Other fun winter activities include alpine skiing at Yabuli, swimming in the icy Songhua River, and seeing the beautiful ice lanterns in Zhaolin Garden.

Harbin is in Northeast China. It gets very cold winter winds from Siberia. The average winter temperature is about –16.8 °C (1.8 °F). It's common for temperatures to drop to –25 °C (–13 °F)! This super cold weather is perfect for keeping the ice sculptures frozen.

History of the Festival

Ice sculpture at the 2010 Ice and Snow festival

The festival started from Harbin's old tradition of ice lantern shows. These shows and garden parties happened in winter and began in 1963. The festival stopped for a few years during the Cultural Revolution. But it started again as a yearly event at Zhaolin Park on January 5, 1985.

In 2001, the Harbin Ice Festival joined with Heilongjiang's International Ski Festival. That's when it got its current official name: the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival.

In 2007, the festival showed a huge Canadian-themed snow sculpture. It was made to remember a Canadian doctor named Norman Bethune. This sculpture won a Guinness World Record! It was the world's largest snow sculpture, measuring 250 meters long and 28 feet (8.5 meters) high. It used over 13,000 cubic meters of snow. The sculpture had two parts: "Niagara Falls" and "crossing the Bering Strait". The second part showed how the First Nations people migrated.

In 2014, the festival celebrated its 30th birthday! Its theme was "50-Year Ice Snow, Charming Harbin." Many fairs, competitions, and shows took place from December 20, 2013, to February 28, 2014.

The 31st Harbin Ice Snow Festival opened on January 5, 2015. Its theme was "Ice Snow Harbin, Charming China Dreams around the world." It had an opening ceremony, fireworks, ice lanterns, and snow sculpture competitions. There were also winter swimming, winter fishing, group weddings, fashion shows, concerts, and ice sports games. These events lasted from December 22, 2014, to early March 2015.

At the 35th festival in 2019, the Harbin Ice and Snow World was huge. It covered over 600,000 square meters and had more than 100 landmarks. It was built using 110,000 cubic meters of ice and 120,000 cubic meters of snow. Artists from 12 different countries also competed in the yearly sculpture competition.

The festival celebrated its 36th year in 2020. It is now seen as one of the world's top winter celebrations. It's as famous as the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan, Canada's Quebec Winter Carnival, and Norway's Holmenkollen Ski Festival. In 2020, the sculptures were made from about 220,000 cubic meters of ice blocks. All this ice was pulled from the nearby Songhua River.

In 2021, the festival was not held at its full size because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

How Ice Sculptures Are Built

Ice sculpture of the Sphinx at the 2010 festival

Workers use special Swing saws to cut ice into large blocks. These blocks come from the frozen surface of the Songhua River. Then, ice sculptors use tools like Chisels, ice picks, and different types of saws. They carve out huge ice sculptures. Many of these are very detailed and take a lot of work, day and night, before the festival starts.

Sometimes, special water called deionised water is used. This makes ice blocks as clear as glass. These clear blocks create transparent sculptures instead of just see-through ones. Many colorful lights are also used to add color to the ice. This makes the sculptures look even more amazing, especially when they are lit up at night.

In past years, some ice sculptures have included:

• Buildings and monuments from different places and styles.
• Figures like animals, people, and mythical creatures.
• Fun slippery dips or ice slides.
• Beautiful lanterns.

Besides other winter fun in Harbin, these wonderfully detailed ice sculptures are the main reason tourists come from all over the world to visit the festival.

Gallery

See also

In Spanish: Festival de esculturas de hielo y nieve de Harbin para niños Other big ice and snow festivals include Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada's Quebec City Winter Carnival, and Norway's Holmenkollen Ski Festival.

• Ice palace
• Snow sculpture
• Sand sculpture
• Winter carnival