Carts piled high with colorful flowers weave through the market, as fragrance mingles with lively chatter. Visitors from across China come here in search of their ideal Spring Festival flowers, while Dounan awakens at dawn amid a sea of blossoms.  

At dawn, the Dounan Flower Market is already bustling. Handcarts stacked with roses, lilies and carnations trundle past, forming steady streams of colour through the bustling stalls. As the Spring Festival approaches, the market enters its peak season for Spring Festival flowers, with average daily trading volumes exceeding 30 million stems.

“I bought sunflowers, plateau red roses, champagne roses and lisianthus to decorate a proposal venue,” said one shopper, his cart filled to the brim. Nearby stalls display neatly holly symbolizing prosperity, wintersweet for good fortune, and silver willow representing wealth and abundance.  

A New Year Flower Market in Full Swing: Taking Home a Cartload of Flowers

The Spring Festival flower stalls are always crowded. These bouquets are not only festive decorations, but also carry people’s hopes and expectations for the new years.

“Wintersweet sells best because it’s in season now and can last for nearly two months,” said a vendor while arranging bouquets. Holly, wintersweet, silver willow, along with rose varieties such as “Plateau Red” and “Cappuccino,” are among the most sought-after flowers.  

Visitors from other regions are especially noticeable. “We came from Xiamen and only learned about Spring Festival flowers after arriving here,” one tourist said with excitement. “The colors immediately caught my eye and really brighten up the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival.”  

Local residents use flowers to decorate their homes and enhance the holiday mood. “I bought daisies to make my home feel warmer as the Chinese New Year approaches,” said a resident choosing flowers with a smile.  

Merchants are preparing for the pre-holiday sales peak. The Dounan Flower Market has partnered with logistics companies to provide professional packaging and air-based cold-chain services, ensuring flowers reach households across the country in peak condition and on time.  

What the Numbers Says:  Which Flowers Top the Charts

Which flowers are the most popular? Which colors are trending? The 2025 Dounan flower data rankings reveal the latest consumption trends.  

Among cut roses, the "Orange Jewel" variety topped the list with annual sales of 151.8 million stems. Pink and orange emerged as the dominant colors, favored for their bright and cheerful tones.  

In the lily category, the Siberian lily takes the top sales spot, symbolizing purity and elegance. White remains the dominant lily color, prized for its fresh and understated beauty.  

Every day, 117 categories and more than 1,700 varieties of cut flowers are traded in Dounan, reflecting not only market trends but also people’s growing pursuit of a better life.

From Three Mu to a Global Hub:  How Dounan Became the Flower Capital of Asia

From the first gladiolus grown on a three-mu experimental plot at a breeding farm in 1983 to today’s “Flower Capital of Asia”—a hub that now claims over 70% of domestic market in China and supplies over 50 countries and regions worldwide—Dounan has spent more than four decades building a modern floriculture powerhouse.

Technology has breathed new life into the flower industry. In smart greenhouses, growers can remotely control lighting and humidity with a smartphone. “I can manage more than 90 mu on my own, with more stable yields and quality,” said Li Jun, a local flower farmer. Thanks to modern facilities, the annual output value of roses can exceed 200,000 yuan per mu.

Seed breeding lies at the heart of the industry’s competitiveness. Chenggong District has established an International Flower Technology Innovation Center, which has built a “living gene bank” that preserves more than 1,000 germplasm resources, including roses and lilies. Since 2024, the center has released more than 1,000 new rose varieties inspired by Chinese aesthetics, ending a long-standing foreign dominance of the high-end market.

Local company Kunming Yang Rose Horticulture Co., Ltd. has focused on breeding for over two decades. It has collected and integrated more than 400 hydrangea germplasm resources and secured plant variety rights for 110 self-developed cultivars. Its flagship variety, “Boda Blue,” now accounts for around 80% of China’s domestic hydrangea cut-flower market.

In March 2025, the Kunming International Data Exchange officially launched Dounan flower data assets, marking the first time in China that flower transaction data elements entered market-based circulation. The move signals Dounan’s transition from a traditional trading hub to a global node in the floral supply chain. 

Wandering Through a Sea of Flowers: Experiencing Blooming Lifestyle in Dounan

In Dounan, flowers have long ceased to be mere commodities. They have become carriers of emotion and symbols of a better life.

On July 25, 2025, China’s first comprehensive flower industry exhibition hall—the China Dounan Flower Exhibition Hall—began trial operations. Covering 1,365 square meters, it condenses the rise of the “Flower Capital of Asia” into an immersive experience titled The Fantastical Journey of a Flower, offering visitors a vivid view of the industry’s entire value chain.

Anchored by Jingui Street, Chenggong District has connected the flower market, exhibition hall, Dianchi lakeside greenway and Dounan Wetland Park into a single tourism corridor, creating a high-quality destination that integrates dining, accommodation, transport, sightseeing, shopping and entertainment.

From January to October 2025, the Dounan Flower Market received around 10.656 million visitors, up 33.74% year on year. Tourist spending reached 1.209 billion yuan, an increase of 43.58%.

Across Yunnan Province, the flower industry directly employs about 380,000 people and supports more than one million jobs indirectly, driving growth in areas such as planting, logistics, hospitality, catering and flower e-commerce.

As the Spring Festival draws near, the festive atmosphere at the Dounan Flower Market even stronger. Residents carefully select blooms to decorate their homes, tourists arrive to soak up the bustle, and vendors busily—and cheerfully—prepare New Year flowers for the season ahead.

As night falls, packed bouquets are loaded onto cold-chain trucks and shipped nationwide by air. Flowers from Kunming can reach most Chinese cities within 48 hours, and even travel beyond China’s borders to the world. 

Every bouquet sent from Dounan carries the blessings of the Spring City and conveys the unique charm of “Yunnan: A Many-Splendored Life.”