China’s annual Spring Festival travel period has achieved a monumental milestone, with daily cross-regional passenger movement surging to unprecedented levels. Official data released by the Ministry of Transport on February 22, 2026, reveals that February 20 witnessed an extraordinary 352.999 million passenger journeys across the nation, establishing a new historical record for daily mobility during this traditional migration period.
This remarkable figure represents a substantial 12.3 percent increase compared to the equivalent day during the 2025 Spring Festival travel season, highlighting the growing intensity of what is universally recognized as the planet’s largest periodic human migration. The 2026 chunyun period, spanning 40 days from February 2 to March 13, is projected to culminate in approximately 9.5 billion inter-regional passenger trips, far surpassing previous years’ volumes.
The Spring Festival, alternatively known as Chinese New Year, occurred on February 17 this year, with official celebrations extending across a nine-day holiday period. This cultural phenomenon drives hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens to undertake extensive journeys to reunite with family members in their hometowns, creating extraordinary transportation demands across railway networks, highways, airports, and waterways.
The transportation infrastructure demonstrated remarkable resilience in managing this colossal passenger volume, implementing sophisticated crowd management strategies and optimized scheduling to ensure safe and efficient travel experiences. This record-breaking mobility reflects both China’s ongoing urbanization trends and the enduring cultural significance of family reunification during traditional festivals, despite the logistical challenges presented by such massive population movements.