Beijingers visit parks en masse for Spring Festival

Beijing's 1,014 parks received 4.97 million visits during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday from Feb 11 to 17, a year-on-year increase of 255 percent, according to data from the Beijing Gardening and Greening Bureau released on Wednesday.

Those parks have carried out policies including free or discounted tickets and provided better service to people who stayed in Beijing for the festival, according to the bureau.

The peak of the visits occurred on Feb 13 and 16. Both days saw daily visits reach more than 930,000.

The government encouraged the residents to stay in the city for the holiday to reduce infection risk instead of going back to their hometowns.

In the past five years, Beijing has built more than 700 "pocket parks" and small-scale green spaces, which have given residents even more options for leisure activity.

According to the bureau, the city has 1,090 parks in total.