On June 17, 2017, Huocheng County in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region held its seventh annual lavender tourism festival. Complete with acrobats and dancers, the festival celebrates the start of the lavender bloom. From June to August, over five square miles of lavender are harvested, totaling over 100 tons per year.

Once an important stop along the Silk Road, Huocheng County transplanted lavender from Beijing in the 1960s. Its plantations have grown exponentially since: Huocheng County now accounts for 95 percent of China’s lavender production.

Along with plantations in Provence, France and Hokkaido, Japan, the Huocheng County Lavender Planting Base is one of the largest in the world.

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