When bank employee Ren Yingxiao was looking for a honeymoon destination with her partner, they stumbled upon a picturesque spot in the Xinjiang region that had it all, including a marriage registration office.
“So we thought, why not go there and get our marriage certificate too?” the 30-year-old said of secluded Sayram Lake, where authorities are trying to attract young Chinese to get married as part of a national campaign aimed at increasing marriage rates and easing the country’s demographic crisis.
In May, China began allowing couples to get married anywhere in the country, rather than just where they live, making the process more convenient and the event more special.
Since then, local governments have begun competing to attract marriage-seeking tourists, setting up civil registry offices in scenic spots, at music festivals and even in subway stations, shopping malls and parks.
Marriage rates rise in China
For now, the effort is paying off.
Marriages, which demographers use as an indicator of the country’s birth rate, increased 22.5% from a year earlier, reaching 1.61 million in the third quarter of 2025, putting China on track to stop the downward trend in annual nuptials, which has remained almost uninterrupted for more than a decade. The 20.5% decline in the number of marriages last year, to 6.1 million, was the largest on record.
In the eastern city of Nanjing, couples can get married at the Confucius Temple, where they can hold a ceremony inspired by the Ming Dynasty. In Chengdu, in the southwest of the country, the authorities set up an office on the picturesque snow-capped Xiling Mountain, more than 3,000 meters above sea level. In Hefei, in the east of the country, a marriage booth was opened at a subway station called Xingfuba, which means “the place of happiness.”
And in Shanghai, couples can choose to get their certificate at a nightclub after showing up at a marriage registration office, thanks to a collaboration between INS Park, a six-story nightlife complex, and the Huangpu District Civil Affairs Bureau.
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In Beijing, lawyer Wang Jieyi, 31, and Zhan Yongqiang, 33, a bank employee, registered their marriage at the Huguo Guanyin Temple. “The Huguo Guanyin Temple was originally built to safeguard the peace and tranquility of the nation,” Wang said. “In addition, in our traditional religious culture, the Guanyin Temple is associated with auspicious events such as marriage and the birth of a child, which symbolize happiness and well-being.”
The couple said the new policy did not necessarily speed up their wedding plans, but it did make the process easier since they both work in Beijing and no longer need to return to their home province of Shandong.
“It made our lives a little easier,” Wang said.
Wedding in the heights
Tourists flock to Xinjiang’s Sayram Lake, where Ren was married, drawn by the rugged mountains and tranquil pastures that surround it. But it is the geographical characteristics of the lake that convince couples to get married there.
It stands at 2,073 meters above sea level, a figure that sounds like “I love you deeply” in Chinese. It has an area of 1,314 square kilometers, a number that phonetically resembles “a life.” The capital of Xinjiang, Urumqi, is 520 kilometers away, a figure that sounds the same as “I love you.”
“All those numbers had symbolic meaning,” Ren said.
Demographer Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said the lifting of geographic restrictions is making it easier to hold weddings in China, but he expects the positive results to be “short-lived.”
With the population declining, Yi estimates that the number of women aged 20 to 34 will almost halve to 58 million by 2050. Additionally, she expects young women—and their parents—to prioritize education and economic independence over marriage, in line with global trends.
Ren agreed, stating that he would have gotten married anyway. He believes marriage and birth rates will improve only when incomes begin to grow and people feel more financially secure.
“It is unlikely that two people who were not planning to get married would suddenly decide to do so on impulse while traveling,” he said. “That’s not very realistic.”
With information from Reuters
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