Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations around the world are bringing overseas Chinese communities and local residents together through mooncakes, lanterns, lion dances and other Chinese traditions.

The festival, one of China’s most important traditional holidays, falls on Sept 25 this year and is traditionally celebrated with family gatherings, moon-gazing and lanterns symbolising reunion.

In Hamburg, residents joined a garden party featuring mooncake tasting and lantern-making, while a gala at the city's Yuyuan Garden marked the 40th anniversary of the Shanghai-Hamburg sister-city relationship with folk music, dance and drama.

In Canada, the festival reached smaller communities, with Burlington hosting its first Mid-Autumn event alongside an Asian night market featuring cultural performances, lion dances and Kung Fu.

In Riyadh, students from several universities explored Chinese culture through mooncakes, traditional clothing and tea culture, reflecting growing interest in learning Chinese and pursuing study, work and cultural exchanges with China.