Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
In a nationwide effort to raise the marriage rate, China last May began allowing couples to marry anywhere in the country rather than where they reside.
local governments has since been seized opportunity Making marriage tourism sites, setting up registration offices at tourist places music festivalsAnd even in metro stations, shopping malls and parks.
For now, the effort is working.
Marriage rates increased in China
weddingswhich is used as a proxy for the country’s demographics birth rateThat’s up 22.5% from a year earlier to 1.61 million in the third quarter of 2025. China On track to halt the declining trend in annual marriages that has been going on almost uninterrupted for more than a decade.
The 20.5% decline in marriages last year, to 6.1 million, was the largest on record.
in the eastern city of Nanjing, pairs People can get married at a Confucian temple, where they can have a Ming dynasty-themed ceremony. In southwestern Chengdu, officials set up an office on the picturesque Xiling Snow Mountain, at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters (9,842 ft). In eastern Hefei, a wedding booth opened in a subway station, whose name, Xingfuba, translates to “place of happiness.”
And in Shanghai, couples can choose to receive their certificate after attending a nightclub Marriage Thanks to the partnership between the registration office, the six-story nightlife complex, INS Park and the Huangpu District Civil Affairs Bureau.
In Beijing, 31-year-old lawyer Wang Jiayi and 33-year-old bank employee Zhan Yongqiang registered their marriage at Huguo Guanyin Temple.
“Huguo Guanyin Temple was originally built to protect the peace and tranquility of the country,” Wang said. “And also, in our traditional religious culture, Guanyin Temple is associated with auspicious events such as marriage and giving birth, symbolizing happiness and well-being.”
The couple said the new policy won’t necessarily speed up their plans to get married, but it has made the process more convenient because they both work in Beijing and no longer need to travel back to their native Shandong province.
“It’s made our lives a little easier,” Wang said.
it’s a game of numbers
Tourists visit Xinjiang’s Sairam Lake, where bank clerk Ren Yingxiao was married, for the steep mountains and tranquil pastures that surround it. But it is the lake’s geographical features that convince couples to get married there.
It is 2,073 meters above sea level, a number that sounds like “love you deeply” in Chinese. Its area is 1,314 square kilometers and this figure is phonetically similar to “lifespan”. Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, is 520 kilometers away – homonyms with “I love you”.
“All those numbers had symbolic meaning,” Ren said.
Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the removal of geographic restrictions is making marriages easier in China, but expects the positive results will be “short-lived.”
With population declining, Yee expects numbers to grow women By 2050, the number of 20 to 34 year olds will almost halve to 58 million. Furthermore, she hopes that young women – and their parents – will prioritize education and economic independence more than marriage, in line with global trends.
Ren agreed, saying that she would have gotten married anyway. He believes that marriage and birth rates will improve only when incomes start rising and people feel more financially secure.
“It is not possible that two people who had not planned to get married would suddenly decide to do so on impulse during a trip,” he said. “It’s not very realistic.”