It’s not an exaggeration to call Mid-Autumn Festival the world’s largest full moon party. Even Labubu, the wildly popular Pop Mart toy, has been known to celebrate the event.
Falling on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, the festival is marked primarily across East and Southeast Asia as a night for families to gather, enjoy the harvest, light lanterns and admire what’s believed to be the roundest moon of the year.
In 2025, the Mid-Autumn Festival, or the Moon Festival, is celebrated on October 6. You can count on plenty of mooncakes, pomelos and more moon-connected essentials as part of traditions marking the ancient holiday.
Here’s what you need to know about the festival and a few tips on how to join the fun.
What is the Mid-Autumn Festival?
Mid-Autumn Festival became an official celebration in China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) but there isn’t one single answer to the question of when and how the annual event began.
Many believe the fete was first mentioned in the “Book of Rites,” a Confucius classic on bureaucracy and rituals written more than 2,400 years ago.
It was described as a day for emperors to celebrate the year’s harvest by giving offerings to the moon and hosting a great feast.
Today, the Mid-Autumn Festival is an incredibly important family gathering — it’s when “people and the moon reunite to form a full circle,” as an old saying goes.