Chunyun

Scene of the 2009 Chunyun period inside Beijing West railway station, China

Chunyun (traditional Chinese: 春運; simplified Chinese: 春运; pinyin: Chūnyùn; literally translated as “Spring transportation”), also referred to as the Spring Festival travel rush or the Chunyun period, is a period of travel in China with extremely high traffic load around the time of the Chinese New Year. The travel season in China usually begins 15 days before New Year's Day and lasts for around 40 days. In 2016 it was predicted that there would be 2.9 billion passenger journeys during that year's Chunyun season.[1] It has been called the largest annual human migration in the world.[2][3] Rail transport experiences the biggest challenge during the period, and several problems have emerged. This phenomenon is also seen in parts of Asia such as Japan, Vietnam and South Korea.

Pictographic world map comparing the largest periodic human migration events[4]
  1. ^ Clifford, Coonan (28 January 2006). "Two billion journeys in China's own great migration". CNN. Retrieved 2016-02-09.
  2. ^ Serenitie Wang, Karla Cripps. "World's largest annual human migration now underway in China". CNN. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  3. ^ "BBC NEWS - World - Asia-Pacific - China's holiday rush begins early". news.bbc.co.uk. 7 January 2009.
  4. ^ McCarthy, Niall (14 February 2018). "Chinese New Year: The World's Largest Human Migration Is About To Begin". Forbes.