Int'l plum blossom festival held in east China

Aerial photo taken on Feb. 19, 2021 shows tourists visiting the Meihuashan (Plum Blossom Hill) scenic area in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Photo by Su Yang/Xinhua)

NANJING, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- An international plum blossom festival was launched on Monday in the city of Nanjing in east China's Jiangsu Province, according to the local culture and tourism bureau.

The event, which will run until March 12, has its main venue on Plum Blossom Mountain in the eastern suburbs of Nanjing, where themed exhibitions and cultural product sales have also been organized.

A special tourist bus route on Plum Blossom Mountain has been launched for the festival so that visitors can enjoy the flowers, according to the event organizers.

Xia Jun, deputy head of the municipal culture and tourism bureau, said that the festival is expected to promote Nanjing's tourism and present the natural beauty of the city through a series of diverse cultural, tourist and commercial activities.

The plum blossom is the city flower of Nanjing, where it is a local custom to view the plum blossoms in early spring every year. The international plum blossom festival was first held in 1996 in the city.