Festivals show a place at its liveliest. This page lists the festivals on the atlas by country, with the months they usually fall in.
Dates for many festivals follow lunar or local calendars and shift each year, so the atlas shows exact days only where a reliable rule exists. Use the Festival calendar tab to browse by month and export dates to your own calendar.
75 pins in 29 countries.
Often-cited examples include Lunar New Year, Diwali, Eid al-Fitr, Christmas, Holi and Carnival in Brazil. Which is biggest depends on whether you count participants, visitors or reach.
Open the Festival calendar tab, choose a month and press the calendar export button to download an .ics file that works with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and Outlook. Dates for moon-based festivals are approximate.
Many festivals follow lunar or lunisolar calendars, such as the Islamic, Hindu and Chinese calendars, which do not line up exactly with the Gregorian year.
Groups in elaborate cardboard-and-crepe-paper costumes parade before dawn through Nassau with cowbells, goatskin drums and horns.
Samba schools compete in the Sambadrome with enormous floats, costumes and music, while street parties fill the city.
A ten-day rodeo and fair with chuckwagon races and a parade that celebrates the cowboy heritage of the Canadian prairies.
Families reunite for a feast, give red envelopes and decorate with red lanterns. The date follows the lunar calendar.
Families gather to admire the full moon and share mooncakes. Hong Kong adds lantern displays in its parks.
Entire buildings and towers are built from huge blocks of ice cut from the frozen Songhua River and lit with coloured lights.
Teams paddle long decorated boats in time to drums, and families eat sticky rice parcels called zongzi. Tradition links the festival with the poet Qu Yuan, who is honoured at Miluo.
Ethiopian Orthodox Christians mark Epiphany with processions of replica arks carried under colourful umbrellas to a blessing of water.
A sixteen-to-eighteen-day folk festival with beer tents, brass bands, rides and traditional Bavarian clothing.
Wooden stalls fill the old town square selling gingerbread, ornaments and hot spiced wine. An angel called the Christkind opens the market.
Homes are lit with oil lamps and decorated with rangoli. The festival celebrates the triumph of light over darkness and is observed by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and some Buddhists.
People throw coloured powder and water at each other to mark the arrival of spring. The towns around Mathura and Vrindavan celebrate it with special intensity.
Neighbourhoods build elaborate temporary pavilions called pandals and display clay idols for several days. UNESCO has listed it as intangible cultural heritage.
Kerala's harvest festival features flower carpets called pookalam, a grand feast served on banana leaves, and boat races.
A four-day Tamil harvest festival named after a dish of rice boiled in milk until it overflows, a symbol of abundance.
Thousands of camels and horses are traded at this fair beside the sacred Pushkar lake, alongside folk performances and competitions.
Households and neighbourhoods install clay images of Ganesha for several days, then carry them in processions to be immersed in water. Mumbai's public celebrations are the largest.
Huge wooden chariots carrying the deities of the Jagannath Temple are pulled through the streets of Puri by thousands of devotees.
Pilgrims bathe at the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna. The Kumbh Mela, held in rotation at four cities, is among the largest peaceful gatherings of people on Earth and is on UNESCO's intangible heritage list.
Mysuru's palace is lit by lights and a grand procession of decorated elephants and floats ends the festival on Vijayadashami.
For nine nights Gujarat dances the garba and dandiya raas in colourful dress. Garba was added to UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2023.
Punjab marks the spring harvest and the founding of the Khalsa in 1699, with processions, bhangra and visits to the Golden Temple.
Nagaland's tribes gather in a heritage village near Kohima to share dances, songs, crafts, food and games.
People gather around bonfires to sing and dance, and offer sesame, jaggery and popcorn to the flames in thanks for the winter crop.
Assam's spring festival of new beginnings, with Bihu dance, drums, traditional dress and festive foods.
Women stack seasonal flowers into a colourful conical arrangement, sing around it, and then immerse it in water. It is the state festival of Telangana.
Women carry decorated pots of food on their heads to temples as offerings to the goddess, accompanied by drummers and dancers.
Devotees stand in rivers and ponds at sunset and sunrise to offer thanks to the Sun god. It is most widely observed in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Women dress in bright clothes and carry clay idols of Gauri in processions through Jaipur and other cities of Rajasthan.
Monks in colourful costumes and masks perform sacred cham dances in the courtyard of Hemis Monastery, and a giant thangka is unveiled.
Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist communities mark the new year with prayers, cleaning the home, special foods and dances.
A tent-city festival beside the shimmering white salt desert of the Rann of Kutch, with folk music, craft stalls and moonlit nights.
The Garo people thank Misi Saljong, the sun god, for the harvest, with the beat of hundreds of drums, dances and traditional dress.
Held after the jungle clearing for the year's farming, with Mizo dances such as Cheraw, songs and traditional costume.
Caparisoned elephants, percussion ensembles and showers of fireworks fill the area around the Vadakkunnathan Temple.
A three-day Sikh gathering with processions, mock battles, martial arts and horse-riding displays.
Millions of clay lamps are lit along the ghats of the Ganga, with evening aarti ceremonies and boat rides.
One of Asia's biggest traditional fairs, held at the meeting of the Ganga and Gandak rivers around Kartik Purnima.
Classical dancers perform against the floodlit Sun Temple, with Odissi at the heart of the programme.
Folk musicians, puppeteers, turban-tying contests and camel races celebrate desert life near the golden fort.
The Balinese New Year is a day of silence: no lights, no travel and no work. The night before, giant papier-mâché ogoh-ogoh figures are paraded through the streets.
Celebrated at the spring equinox across Iran, Central Asia and beyond, with a table set with symbolic items called haft-sin. It is on UNESCO's intangible heritage list.
Dublin holds a multi-day festival with parades and music around the national day, and Irish communities worldwide join in.
Costumed visitors wear elaborate masks and gowns in Venice's squares in the weeks before Lent.
People picnic beneath blooming cherry trees. The timing of the blossoms is closely followed in the news each spring.
One of Japan's most famous festivals, held through July with a procession of huge decorated floats through Kyoto's streets.
Sculptors build enormous snow statues and ice carvings across Odori Park and other sites in the city.
People hang paper wishes on bamboo branches in memory of a legend of two star-lovers. Sendai's August celebration is one of the best known.
Families clean graves and light lanterns to welcome the spirits of ancestors. Kyoto ends the season with the Gozan no Okuribi bonfires on the hills.
Children aged three, five and seven are dressed in kimono and taken to shrines to give thanks for their health and growth.
Devotees climb the 272 steps to the Batu Caves temple, many carrying milk pots or kavadi frames as acts of devotion.
Families build altars with photographs, marigolds, food and candles to welcome the spirits of the dead. It is a joyful remembrance rather than a sad occasion.
Delegations from Oaxaca's regions perform traditional dances in colourful dress and share local products with the audience.
Mongolia's national festival features wrestling, horse racing and archery. It is on UNESCO's intangible heritage list.
Musicians from many traditions perform in the historic city of Fes in a festival devoted to sacred and spiritual music.
The national day marks the 1840 signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, with ceremonies at the Treaty Grounds in the Bay of Islands.
A theatrical recreation of the Inca sun festival, held at the Sacsayhuamán fortress above Cusco at the winter solstice.
People paint their faces, wear bright costumes and dance through the streets of Kalibo to drums in honour of the Holy Child.
Muslims around the world mark the end of Ramadan's month of fasting with prayers, charity, family meals and gifts. The date shifts about ten days earlier each year.
A summer festival where visitors play and slide in mud brought from the nearby tidal flats, with concerts on the beach.
Thousands of participants throw ripe tomatoes at each other in the streets in a one-hour food fight.
A week of processions, music and street parties dressed in white and red, famous for the daily encierro, in which runners dash ahead of bulls through the streets. Animal-welfare groups campaign against it.
Buddhists decorate streets with lanterns and light-boxes called thoranas and share free food and drinks with passers-by.
Swedes raise a decorated maypole, dance in rings and eat herring and new potatoes outdoors on the longest days of the year.
Visitors write wishes on paper lanterns and release them into the night sky above the old railway town of Pingxi.
Thai New Year is celebrated with respectful water-pouring over Buddha images and elders' hands, which grows into citywide water fights.
Thousands of paper lanterns are released into the sky, and people float small decorated baskets on rivers to let go of bad luck.
Two days of masquerade bands in feathered costumes, calypso and soca music, and steel pan competitions before Lent.
Participants dressed as Vikings carry torches in a procession and set fire to a replica longship, celebrating Shetland's Norse heritage.
Edinburgh hosts a huge street party with a torchlight procession and fireworks. At midnight crowds sing Auld Lang Syne, a song by Robert Burns.
Founded by the Caribbean community in the 1960s, it is Europe's biggest street festival, with steel bands, sound systems, costumes and food.
A huge farm-site festival of music, circus, theatre and comedy that has run since 1970.
A temporary city of art installations and communal living is built in the desert each year and then removed, leaving no trace.
Families gather for a large meal, often with roast turkey, and give thanks. Canada celebrates its own Thanksgiving in October.
Parades with floats and marching bands, costumes, and beads thrown to the crowd fill New Orleans in the weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday.