BEIJING: Hundreds of millions of Chinese criss-cross the country during the Lunar New Year holidays each year to reunite with families back in their hometowns or for sight-seeing during an extended festive period, making it the world’s largest annual human migration. The Lunar New Year travel rush, known as Chunyun in Chinese, is often seen as a barometer for China’s economic health and a pressure test for its vast transportation system.

This year’s Lunar New Year travel rush kicked off on Tuesday and will last for 40 days, concluding on Feb.22.

The official Spring Festival holidays, as the new year celebrations are known in China, will run from Jan.28 to Feb.4.

Officials are expecting a record 9 billion domestic trips during the 40-day period, an increase from the around 8.4 billion trips logged last year. Road trips, expected to reach 7.2 billion journeys this year, are projected to account for about 80 percent of all trips, followed by train and air travel.

Rail travel is set to hit a record 510 million trips, a 5.5 percent year-on-year increase, while air travel is expected to exceed 90 million trips.

Top air travel destinations include cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu, Beijing, Harbin and Xian, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Internationally, flights to Tokyo, Osaka, Bangkok and Singapore are also seeing strong demand, according to the civil aviation regulator.

On the first day of Chunyun, total domestic travel is expected to reach 172.39 million trips, including 159.52 million by road, 10.3 million by rail, 2.04 million by air and 530,000 by waterways, the Transport Ministry said on Tuesday.

This year’s travel rush comes as China extended the official Spring Festival break by one day to eight days. The country also expanded its visa-free entry policy to 38 countries, including nearby Japan and South Korea, and doubled the stay period to 30 days. For eligible foreign transit travelers, the permitted stay was extended to 10 days. It was up to six days previously.