The Dragon Boat Festival is a traditional festival of the Miao people, but nowadays the Dragon Boat Festival generally means the Dragon Boat Festival. Dragon boat racing is one of the customs of the Dragon Boat Festival in China.

It is also one of the most important festive folk activities of the Dragon Boat Festival, which is common in the southern region of China, and in the northern cities near rivers and lakes, there are also dragon boat racing customs, while most of them are in the form of paddling a dry dragon boat and dancing dragon boat. About the origin of dragon boat racing, there are a variety of sayings, there are sacrifices to Cao E, sacrifices to Qu Yuan, sacrifices to the god of water or the dragon god and other ritual activities, its origin can be traced back to the Warring States period. Dragon boat racing has been introduced to neighboring countries such as Japan, Vietnam and the United Kingdom, and was an official event of the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games.

On May 23, 2011, dragon boat racing was approved by the State Council to be included in the third batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. Utilitarian dragon boat racing refers to the beginning budding stage of dragon boat racing, in terms of time, roughly in the pre-Qin Dynasty. Primitive period of the ancestors, fishing on the water, ferrying water labor, especially in the flooding in the escape, rescue and water fighting, competing in the race.