China on the move to welcome Year of the Horse

The Year of the Snake slithers away and the Horse gallops into town

HONG KONG, China -- What is possibly the planet's largest annual mass migration of humanity has begun with the start of the Chinese New Year holidays welcoming in the Year of the Horse.

In China itself the occasion officially known as the Spring Festival is marked by a massive uprooting of the population with tens of millions taking to road, rail, air and ferry transport to head home for family reunions.

According to the Ministry of Transport in Beijing around 130 million rail journeys are made over the holiday period and dozens of extra services are laid on to cope with demand.

On top of that a staggering 1.6 billion road trips are made while about 24.5 million choose to travel by boat.

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For many Chinese it is the only holiday of any length in the entire year. For ethnic Chinese around the globe it is the biggest of the annual festivals; one to mark with a bang -- literally -- as millions of firecrackers are set off across the country.

Of course, in a country as obsessed by food as China is, feasting will be topping the agenda in many households.

Supermarkets in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have been struggling to keep pace with demand in the run up to the festival -- restocking shelves of biscuits, cakes and other goodies as fast as eager customers can clear them.

In the money

Another tradition in this ultimate consumer fest is the handing out of Lei See -- red envelopes containing money.

Among those traditionally expected to dole out the cash are bosses to their staff, married couples to unmarried relatives, and parents to their children.

Tens of millions crowd onto the country's rail network to head home for new year

Whilst millions will use the vacation as a chance to catch up with relatives, a growing number of more affluent Chinese are opting to head abroad with regional economies viewing the occasion as a chance to recover tourist dollars lost as a result of the September 11 attacks in the U.S.

Top of the list are destinations in Japan, South Korea and Australia with tour operators in China reporting holidays sold out months ago.

One of the busiest border crossings though will be the frontier with the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong where officials are expecting some 6.34 million people to pass through immigration counters over the holiday period.

To put that in some perspective, according to a census conducted last year by the Hong Kong Government the entire population of Hong Kong is only slightly larger -- coming in at around 6.73 million.