The annual Yuyuan Garden Lantern Festival is set to light up Shanghai on New Year's Day to mark the upcoming Year of the Snake, celebrating its 30th anniversary with a special exhibition taking place at the same time, organizers said on Tuesday.

Running until Feb 12, the 42-day event at Yuyuan Garden, a major tourism destination in Shanghai, features a diverse collection of lanterns that exhibit the zodiac creature as the theme. Decorated by various other elements of animals, forests, mountains and elves, the lantern installations aim to present a diverse, vibrant and harmonious scene of life forms.