Dragon-boat Racing in Lishui

Development of the series

According to a 2025 report on the Xinhua News Agency Jiangsu Channel, Honglan Subdistrict was formerly called Honglan Wharf and was once an important river port of Lishui, and the report says it has had a custom of dragon-boat racing since ancient times; the Honglan dragon-boat race was "grandly revived" in 2023, and 2026 was its fourth edition. The series is therefore 2023 (the revived first edition), 2024 (second), 2025 (third) and 2026 (fourth). The races are held on the Yanzhi River in Honglan (the market-town stretch).

The statement that the custom goes back to ancient times is the report's wording; this library searched the full texts of the five Lishui County Gazetteers it holds and found no passage on dragon boats or racing, so the entry does not trace the event back to an ancient custom.

The second edition, 2024

According to a June 2024 report on China Jiangsu Network, the second edition opened on 10 June 2024 on the Yanzhi River, with an agricultural-products market and ICH folk-custom stalls on the site. That report records only that the Honglan Subdistrict chamber-of-commerce team reached the last twelve and finished seventh, and does not give the total number of teams that year.

The third edition, 2025

According to a May 2025 report on the Xinhua News Agency Jiangsu Channel, the third edition was held on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, 31 May, with 24 teams from government bodies and enterprises across the district. Alongside it were a parent-and-child rowing experience, a flower-boat parade with a top-scholar theme, a poetry-and-music evening for the festival and other activities.

The fourth edition, 2026

According to reports in June 2026 by the district media centre and by China National Radio, the fourth Lishui Honglan dragon-boat race, sponsored under the name Nongshanghang Cup, opened on 19 June 2026 on the bank of the Yanzhi River at Honglan, with 27 teams and a 200-metre straight course in 18-person mixed crews; robot lion dancers performed before the race, and a culture market, an agricultural-products fair, an ICH craft exhibition, a hanfu experience and other activities ran alongside it.

The district media centre's report says the event drew 200,000 onlookers counted together on site and online. That figure is the report's combined total and includes online viewing; it is not the number of spectators on site, and the qualifier "on site and online" is retained here.

Points in doubt

First, the edition numbers and the sponsor's name are reproduced as they stand in the reports and are not abbreviated; 2023 was the revived first edition, whose scale and details have not been obtained here.

Second, team counts and onlooker figures are the reports' figures and must carry their year; no total team count for the 2024 edition was found here.

Third, the statement that the custom goes back to ancient times is the report's wording, with no gazetteer passage behind it here, and is not written as fact.

Fourth, the level of the event and its organisers should follow the official documents of the race; this page is only a lead.

Fifth, this item is not the same as this site's entry on Yuancun Dragon Boat Rowing: the latter is a land-boat performance on dry ground (a traditional dance), while this item is racing on water at the Dragon Boat Festival.