Lunar New Year 2016 celebrated around the world - Action News
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Lunar New Year 2016 celebrated around the world

People around the world rang in the Lunar New Year with fireworks, parades and prayers. Also known as Chinese New Year, the first day of the centuries-old festival fell on Feb. 8 this year the day following the first new moon of the Chinese Lunisolar calendar.

Lunar New Year fell on Feb. 8 this year

Thousands of people gathered to burn incense and pray for good fortune at Yonghegong Lama Temple in Beijing in observance of the first day of the Lunar New Year on Feb. 8, 2016. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

The Year of the Goat gave way to the Year of the Monkey on Monday.

Lunar New Year is celebrated around the world in cities with large Chinese populations, and New York is no exception. Here, confetti and firecrackers ring in the Year of the Monkey in Chinatown on Monday. (Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty)

The Lunar New Year begins with the first new moon of the lunar year ...

In Hong Kong, Lunar New Year celebrations included a huge night-time parade. (Anthony Kwan/Getty)

and ends some 15 days later with the Lantern Festival.

Lanterns decorated with animals from the Chinese zodiac line the streets (and frame this bus) in Singapore on Feb. 5. (Edgar Su/Reuters)
Lanterns such as these illuminating a shrine in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, are a staple item of Chinese New Year celebrations everywhere. (Olivia Harris/Reuters)

The Chinese capital plays host to one of the world's largest New Year's Day celebrations.

Performers take a part in a re-enactment of an ancient Qing Dynasty ceremony in Ditan Park, in Beijing, on the first day of the Year of the Monkey. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Celebrations and prayers for a prosperous year begin at the stroke of midnight.

In Singapore, people wait to plant the first joss stick of the year at the stroke of midnight in Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho temple. (Edgar Su/Reuters)

Lunar New Year's is traditionally a cause to dress up ...

A woman and her daughter dressed in traditional Chinese attire mark the occasion with a selfie during New Year's celebrations in Bangkok. (Jorge Silva/Reuters)
In Hanoi, New Year's is a time to dress in traditional clothing. This woman, wearing a long, traditionally cut dress, was photographed in a blossoming field on Feb. 2 leading up to Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year festival. (Kham/Reuters)

and attendparades.

The Japanese city of Yokohama, just south of Tokyo, has a vibrant Chinatown and plays host to one of the country's largest Lunar New Year festivals. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)
These lion dancers in the East Indian city of Calcutta performed during that city's New Year kickoff celebrations. (Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)

In South Korea,Seolnal is a formal affair.

Along the border dividing North and South Korea, Seolnal Korean Lunar New Year takes on a memorial air as members of divided families gather near the demilitarized zone in the town of Paju. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

The days leading up to New Year's are one of the busiest travel periods of the year in China.

Weather delays that forced more than 50,000 people to wait for hours at Guangzhou Railway Station were seen as an inauspicious start to the year by some local media outlets. (Reuters)