This is People's Daily Tonight.

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2018 Chunyun kicks off: How much do you know about the Spring Festival travel rush?

The world's largest human migration officially kicks off on Thursday in China as about 3 billion anticipated trips will be made during the 40-day travel peak from February 1 to March 12.

Chunyun, known as the Spring Festival travel rush, not only means the magnificent sight of thousands of high-speed trains gearing up for over 400 million trips, but also that millions of city dwellers, students and migrant workers journey back home by all means of transportation to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

It’s a time-honored tradition for most Chinese to reunite with their family during the Spring Festival and have a family dinner on Chinese New Year Eve. Since people will have a weeklong holiday, many choose to use it for traveling around the country. Getting a seat is a competitive affair. Some people wait in line for days and even online tickets sell out fast.

Every Spring Festival season, millions of people travel a combined 1.2 billion kilometers on trains, cars, buses and planes. That's the distance between Earth and Saturn.

The most prominent chunks of outbound trips come from Guangdong, Shanghai and Beijing. And the major destinations are the provinces of Hunan, Hubei and Henan. The flow is reversed when the holiday ends.

With rare heavy snow blanketing several areas in central and eastern China, China vows to take multiple measures to ensure a smooth Chunyun this year. Fast-developing infrastructure has made this homeward march much quicker for many.

Every year, nearly 400 million trips are accomplished by trains during the new year migration season. That means more than 100 passengers hopping onto trains every second, for 40 continuous days.

At the same time, the aviation authority scheduled additional 30,000 flights during the travel rush on the basis of about 14,500 flights every day.

New transportation modes including car-sharing and paid hitchhiking are being encouraged during the travel peak.

The epic annual Spring Festival travel rush is the embodiment of Chinese people’s yearning for family reunion. Although the journey is not easy, having a family dinner with a table full of homemade delicacies makes it all worth it.

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And that's People's Daily Tonight. Thank you for joining us.

(Produced by Chen Zilin, Liang Peiyu)