The Mid-Autumn Festival began in the early years of the Tang Dynasty and prevailed in the Song Dynasty. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it had become one of the traditional festivals in China with the same reputation as the Spring Festival. On May 20, 2006, the State Council was listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage, and the Mid-Autumn Festival has been listed as a national legal holiday since 2008.

There are many opinions about the origin of Mid-Autumn Festival. The word Mid-Autumn Festival was first seen in Zhou Li, and The Book of Rites and the Moon Order said: "The Mid-Autumn Moon nurtures aging and follows a porridge diet."

One said that it originated from the sacrificial activities of ancient emperors. It is recorded in the Book of Rites that "the sun rises in the spring, and the moon falls in the autumn", and the moon is a sacrifice to the moon, indicating that as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, emperors began to sacrifice to the moon and Yue Bai. Later, aristocratic officials and scholars followed suit and gradually spread to the people.

Second, the origin of Mid-Autumn Festival is related to agricultural production. Autumn is the harvest season. The word "autumn" is interpreted as "autumn when the crops are ripe". Mid-Autumn Festival in August, crops and various fruits are maturing one after another. In order to celebrate the harvest and express their joy, farmers take "Mid-Autumn Festival" as a festival. "Mid-Autumn Festival" means the middle of autumn. The August of the lunar calendar is a month in the middle of autumn, and the 15th is a day in the middle of this month. Therefore, the Mid-Autumn Festival may be a custom inherited from the ancient autumn newspaper.

Some historians have also pointed out that the origin of Mid-Autumn Festival should be August 15th, 13th year of Daye in Tang Jun at the end of Sui Dynasty. Peiji, Tang Jun, with the idea of a full moon, successfully invented moon cakes and distributed them to the army as military salaries, which successfully solved the problem of military rations derived from absorbing a large number of anti-Sui rebels.