This year Zhangjiakou is for the first time holding an Ice Art Festival. The show kicked off last Friday night and will last for 50 days, making the city in North China’s Hebei province the third in the country to host a large-scale outdoor ice lantern show, after Beijng and Harbin.

Made possible thanks to total investments amounting to 10 million yuan, the major parts of the celebration consist of a large-scale themed ice sculpture show as well as ice and snow entertainment facilities.

A 6-meter-high ice sculpture of Shanhaiguan, a famous section of Great Wall during the Ming Dynasty, located in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, was showcased at the Ice Art Festival in Zhangjiakou , Hebei province on Jan 7th.

The ice sculpture show displays more than 200 ice lanterns and ice sculptures, with 18 huge ice architecture works, including a sculpture of the 50-meter-long and 10-meter-high Dajing Gate and a 6-meter-high sculpture of Shanhaiguan, both parts of the Ming Dynasty great wall in Hebei.

Visitors can also take advantage of many other attractions, including an ice slide and a Children’s playground.

With the lowest temperature reaching lower than minus 20 degrees Celsius, Zhangjiakou can get very cold in winter. As the government has endeavored to develop winter tourism in recent years, putting on the ice show seemed the ideal attraction for the area. Since last November the city has received more than 800,000 domestic and foreign tourists and has raised revenues of 470 million yuan.

By Guo Changdong and Zhang Nan