Harbin: Ice and Snow World, Sun Island Snow Sculptures & Central Street Day Tour

Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang in China's far north-east, builds a city of ice every winter. Blocks cut from the frozen Songhua River become towers, palaces and slides lit from within, while sculptors turn compacted snow into enormous reliefs. This full-day group tour combines the season's two headline venues, the Sun Island International Snow Sculpture Art Expo and Harbin Ice and Snow World, with a morning walk through the city's Russian-influenced old centre.

We start in Sophia Square beneath the green onion dome of St. Sophia Cathedral, a red-brick Russian Orthodox church built between 1923 and 1932 that now houses the Harbin Architecture Art Museum. Your guide then walks you along Central Street (Zhongyang Dajie), a cobbled pedestrian avenue of early 20th-century facades where ice sculptures often appear in winter, and where locals happily eat ice cream outdoors at −20 °C. The street ends on the Songhua River at Stalin Park and the Flood Control Memorial Tower, with views over the frozen river.

After lunch at your own cost, we cross to Sun Island for the Snow Sculpture Expo, best seen in daylight when the low winter sun picks out the detail in the white carvings. The 2025–26 edition, the 38th, covered about 1.5 million square metres with 260 groups of sculptures. In mid-afternoon we move on to Harbin Ice and Snow World, arriving before dusk so you see the ice by day and then watch it light up in every colour. For 2026–27 the park is expanding to a record 1.25 million square metres and plans more than 1,000 ice and snow structures built from about 400,000 cubic metres of ice and snow, with slides, performances and walk-through ice palaces.

A note on dates: as of mid-October 2026 the official opening dates of the 2026–27 season had not been announced. Last season Ice and Snow World opened on 17 December 2025, and the Sun Island expo opened at the end of December, with both running into late February, depending on the weather. This tour runs from 2 January to 20 February 2027, when both venues are normally open, and the dates will be updated once the organisers confirm the season.

We drop you at Central Street or your central Harbin hotel at around 19:30, in time for a late dinner of dumplings or a hot pot in the old town.

Harbin in January is extremely cold: daytime highs are typically around −12 °C to −15 °C and nights can fall below −25 °C. Wear thermal underwear, a long down coat, insulated waterproof boots, a hat that covers your ears, a scarf or face mask, and two layers of gloves. Both parks have heated rest areas where you can warm up.

Phone and camera batteries drain fast in the cold. Keep them in an inside pocket and bring a power bank.

You will spend about six hours walking on packed snow and ice, at a slow pace with frequent stops. Shoes with a good grip are essential, and the tour is not suitable for wheelchairs.

Bring your passport: tickets for major attractions in China are issued in the visitor's name and may be checked against ID. Mobile payment apps are the norm for small purchases, so set one up before travelling or carry some cash.

In unusually warm or severe weather the parks may change their hours or close at short notice. If a venue is closed, we will adjust the itinerary and refund the unused admission.