Akita Kanto

Akita Kanto is a Japanese festival featuring skillful balancing of long bamboo poles adorned with lanterns, celebrating a bountiful harvest.

Aste Nagusia

Aste Nagusia, or the Great Week, is the largest festival in Bilbao, Spain, featuring concerts, fireworks, and traditional Basque activities.

Andong Mask Dance Festival

The Andong Mask Dance Festival in South Korea showcases traditional Korean mask dances, cultural performances, and international mask dances.

Carabao Festival

The Carabao Festival in the Philippines honors the carabao, or water buffalo, with parades, decorations, and blessings of the animals.

Carnival of Binche

The Carnival of Binche in Belgium is famous for its Gilles, costumed men who throw oranges to the crowd as a symbol of good luck.

Carnivals

Carnivals are celebrated globally with parades, music, dancing, and costumes, often preceding the fasting season of Lent.

Chinese Dragon Boat Festival

The Chinese Dragon Boat Festival commemorates the poet Qu Yuan with dragon boat races, rice dumplings, and traditional rituals.

Doudou

Doudou is a traditional festival in Mons, Belgium, featuring a reenactment of Saint George slaying the dragon and a vibrant procession.

Esala Perahera

Esala Perahera is a grand Buddhist festival in Sri Lanka, featuring processions with dancers, drummers, and decorated elephants.

European Harvest Festivals

European Harvest Festivals celebrate the end of the growing season with feasts, dances, and thanksgiving ceremonies, honoring the bounty of the land.

Festa das Cruzes

Festa das Cruzes, or Festival of the Crosses, is a Portuguese celebration featuring processions, floral decorations, and traditional music.

Festa das Fogaceiras

Festa das Fogaceiras is a traditional festival in Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal, where young girls carry decorated cakes to honor Saint Sebastian.

Festa del Redentore

Festa del Redentore is a Venetian festival celebrated with fireworks and feasts, commemorating the end of a plague in the 16th century.

Festes de Sant Joan

Festes de Sant Joan, or the Festival of Saint John, is celebrated in Menorca, Spain, with bonfires, parades, and traditional horse riding events.

Fêtes de Bayonne

Fêtes de Bayonne is one of France's largest festivals, featuring parades, bull runs, music, and dancing, attracting millions of visitors each year.

Fiesta de la Tirana

Fiesta de la Tirana is a religious festival in Chile honoring the Virgen del Carmen with traditional dances, music, and vibrant costumes.

Gaijatra

Gaijatra, or the Cow Festival, is a Nepalese festival where families who have lost a loved one lead cows through the streets to help guide the deceased's soul to heaven.

Gelede

Gelede is a Yoruba festival in Nigeria celebrating women and mothers with colorful masks, music, and dance performances.

Gion Matsuri

Gion Matsuri is Kyoto's most famous festival, featuring grand processions of floats, traditional music, and street festivities throughout July.

Infiorata

Infiorata is an Italian festival where streets are decorated with intricate designs made from flower petals, often during religious celebrations.

Jidai Matsuri

Jidai Matsuri, or the Festival of Ages, is a historical reenactment festival in Kyoto, Japan, featuring a grand procession in period costumes.

Karatsu Kunchi Festival

Karatsu Kunchi Festival in Japan features massive floats shaped like samurai helmets, dragons, and sea creatures, paraded through the streets.

Kattenstoet Cat Festival

Kattenstoet, or the Cat Festival, is held in Ypres, Belgium, featuring parades of giant cat effigies and historical reenactments.

La Diada de Sant Jordi

La Diada de Sant Jordi, or Saint George's Day, is celebrated in Catalonia with book fairs and the exchange of roses and books between loved ones.

La Mercè

La Mercè is Barcelona's largest annual festival, featuring street performances, fireworks, and the human towers known as castells.

Lajkonik of Krakow

The Lajkonik of Krakow is a Polish festival where a bearded man dressed as a Tatar horseman parades through the city, bringing good luck to spectators.

Les Gayants de Douai

Les Gayants de Douai is a French festival featuring parades of giant effigies representing the city's historical figures.

Narzissenfest

Narzissenfest, or the Daffodil Festival, is an Austrian celebration featuring parades of floral sculptures made from daffodils.

Nebuta Matsuri

Nebuta Matsuri is a Japanese festival in Aomori featuring massive illuminated floats, traditional music, and dance performances.

Ngondo

Onbashira Festival

Onbashira Festival in Japan involves participants riding massive logs down a hill in a test of bravery, held every six years.

Sartiglia

Sartiglia is a medieval jousting festival in Sardinia, Italy, featuring knights on horseback competing to capture rings with their swords.

Sechseläuten

Sechseläuten is a traditional spring festival in Zurich, Switzerland, where the burning of the Böögg effigy symbolizes the end of winter.

Surin Elephant Round-up

The Surin Elephant Round-up in Thailand showcases the skills of elephants and their handlers in a grand display of pageantry and tradition.

Tamborrada

Tamborrada is a drum festival in San Sebastián, Spain, where participants dress in traditional costumes and march through the streets playing drums.

Tinku

Tinku is a Bolivian festival where participants engage in ritualistic combat as an offering to Pachamama, the earth goddess, for a bountiful harvest.

Unspunnen Festival

The Unspunnen Festival in Switzerland celebrates Swiss culture with events like stone throwing, traditional wrestling, and alphorn playing.

Water Splashing Festival

The Water Splashing Festival, celebrated by the Dai people in China, involves water fights and rituals to wash away bad luck and bring blessings.

Battle of the Flowers

The Battle of the Flowers is a colorful festival in Valencia, Spain, featuring flower-covered floats and playful flower fights.

Jerez Horse Fair

The Jerez Horse Fair in Spain is a week-long celebration featuring equestrian events, flamenco music, and sherry tastings.

Kaltenberg Knights Tournament

The Kaltenberg Knights Tournament in Germany is a medieval festival featuring jousting, sword fighting, and historical reenactments.

Kamakura Snow Festival

The Kamakura Snow Festival in Japan features snow huts, known as kamakura, illuminated with candles and used as shrines for good fortune.

Namahage

Namahage is a Japanese New Year's tradition in Akita Prefecture where men dressed as ogres visit homes to ward off laziness and bad spirits.

Moussem

Moussem festivals in Morocco are annual events celebrating local saints with processions, music, and traditional rituals.

Pushkar Camel Fair

The Pushkar Camel Fair in India is a vibrant event featuring camel trading, cultural performances, and competitions.

Ride of the Kings

Ride of the Kings is a traditional festival in the Czech Republic where young men parade on horseback, dressed in historical costumes.

Tinku

Tinku is a Bolivian festival where participants engage in ritualistic combat as an offering to Pachamama, the earth goddess, for a bountiful harvest.

Burning the Clocks

Burning the Clocks is a unique winter solstice festival in Brighton, England, where participants create lanterns and costumes, culminating in a beach bonfire.