World's largest ice-and-snow theme park opens on Winter Solstice in China's 'city of ice'

HARBIN -- Gliding down an over-500-meter-long ice slide, Zhang Jiajia felt like she was flying, and that her one-minute experience had been worth the hour-plus wait in line.

"It's super exciting. My heart soared with me," said Zhang, a tourist from east China's Zhejiang province, after trying the Super Ice Slide at the iconic Harbin Ice-Snow World, which kicked off its annual run on Saturday.

The world's largest ice-and-snow theme park, the 26th edition of the Harbin Ice-Snow World, officially opened at 10 am in Harbin, the capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province also known as the "city of ice."

Themed "Dream of Winter, Love among Asia," the park was built using 300,000 cubic meters of ice and snow, incorporating elements inspired by the upcoming 2025 Harbin Asian Winter Games, which will open next February, right after China's Spring Festival holiday. It is also the first major international ice and snow event hosted by China since the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

With an overall planned area of 1 million square meters, up from last year's 800,000 square meters, the park is the largest in its 26-year history.

The park features nine major zones, recreating landmark landscapes of 42 countries and 3 regions that are members of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) in the form of ice-and-snow structures that can be illuminated at night, including replicas of the Temple of Heaven in China, Osaka Castle in Japan and the Taj Mahal in India.

The main tower stands on the main axis of the park, featuring towering ice columns that depict the official emblem of the OCA.

"The ice sculptures are incredibly exquisite. It's hard to imagine that they are made of ice blocks harvested from the Songhua River. Each piece of artwork showcases the superb craftsmanship of the artists," said Zhong Xueying, another tourist from Zhejiang.

The most popular attraction in the park, the Super Ice Slide, has increased the number of its lanes to 24, with a 300-meter-long windproof warm house mounted at the queuing area, allowing visitors to take a break from freezing weather while overlooking the park's scenery.