has issued a set of commemorative stamps featuring Chinese folk lanterns in celebration of the century-old traditional Lantern Festival on Sunday.

The serial stamps include five sheetlets depicting a fish lantern, a cabbage lantern, a lotus lantern, a dragon and phoenix lantern and a butterfly lantern.

The Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions also issued stamps on lanterns on the same day. This is the sixth time the interior area, Hong Kong and Macao to do joint issue on a common theme.

Making lanterns out of paper and cloth is China's traditional folk art. Pictures of people, landscapes, flowers and animals are printed, drawn or embroidered on the lanterns.

On the traditional Chinese Lantern Festival, the 15th day of the first lunar month, Chinese hang up hand-made lanterns and solve lantern riddles at a special lantern show.

(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2006)