The Mid-Autumn Festival is also called Moon Festival, Autumn Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, August Festival, Reunion Festival, Moon Festival, Moon Worship Festival and even Daughter's Day or Reunion Festival. It is one of the important festivals in China traditional culture.

At present, scholars agree that Mid-Autumn Festival was popular from Song Dynasty to Ming and Qing Dynasties, and it has become a traditional festival in China with the same name as Spring Festival. Influenced by Chinese culture, Mid-Autumn Festival is also a traditional festival in Japan, South Korea in East Asia and some countries and regions in Southeast Asia, especially local Chinese and overseas Chinese.

There are many opinions about the origin of Mid-Autumn Festival, but there is not much controversy because of the pre-Qin period. The Mid-Autumn Festival originated from the worship of the moon god in ancient times, which is the legacy and derivative of the custom of sacrificing the moon in Han nationality. Sacrificing the moon is one of the important ceremonies in ancient China. As early as the Zhou Dynasty, the Emperor of Heaven had the custom of offering sacrifices to the sun at the vernal equinox, to the ground at the summer solstice, to the moon at the autumn equinox and to heaven at the winter solstice. "Book of Rites" records: "The son of heaven is in the spring and the sun is shining, and the autumn is in the evening. Asahi is facing the DPRK, and the evening is in the evening. "

The traditional calendar in China is related to the worship of the moon in ancient times. The ancients divided a year into four seasons, and each season was divided into three months: Meng, Zhong and Ji. August in the lunar calendar is the second month of autumn, which is called "Mid-Autumn". And August 15th is in the "Mid-Autumn Festival", so it is called "Mid-Autumn Festival". The Mid-Autumn Festival has also gradually developed from the ancient emperor to the folk, becoming an important festival for the Chinese nation.

Of course, there is another saying that the Mid-Autumn Festival is not from the worship of the moon in ancient times, but a folk festival to celebrate the harvest. The word "autumn" is interpreted as "autumn when the crops are ripe". In agricultural society, autumn is the day of bumper harvest every year. In order to celebrate the bumper harvest of grain, express happy mood and look forward to a good harvest in the coming year, people hold various activities on the full moon night on August 15th. These customs have been handed down and become the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In addition, it is also recorded in the Book of Rites and the Moon Order: "Mid-autumn moon nurtures aging and eats porridge." This is not only the earliest record of the word "Mid-Autumn Festival", but also shows that in the Zhou Dynasty, the government would give porridge to the old people on August 15 to strengthen their physique and prevent aging.