Lantern festival adorns Sanmenxia

A stunning lantern show to celebrate this year's Spring Festival opened on January 21 at Shanzhou Cave Dwellings in Sanmenxia, Henan province, and will run for more than 40 days until March 9. This year's lantern show, in celebration of the Year of the Pig in the Chinese lunar calendar, is made up of 155 large ornate lanterns and more than 100,000 small lights.

This lantern features a design of the pig as the Chinese god of wealth standing on a gold sycee or yuanbao, a type of currency used in imperial China, which symbolizes harmony and wealth. [Photo by Gong Weidong/chinanews.com]

Centering on Sanmenxia characteristics, these lanterns show visitors white swans, the Sanmenxia Dam, and the Yellow River. [Photo by Gong Weidong/chinanews.com]

This set of ornate lanterns imitate another hot spot in Sanmenxia, the Hangu Pass, one of the earliest fortresses in Chinese history, which is also the holy land where Lao-tzu, the great ancient Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism, wrote the Tao Te Ching, a masterpiece of Taoism. [Photo by Gong Weidong/chinanews.com]

An aerial photograph shows a number of brightly lit lanterns at Shanzhou Silo-cave. [Photo by Gong Weidong/chinanews.com]