There's a little more than a month to go before China celebrates Spring Festival, and train tickets already went on sale on Thursday. Unlike previous years, when people can purchase tickets online 60 days in advance, tickets this year are only available just 30 days before the date of departure.

As of Thursday, the top five departure cities are Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing Shanghai and Ningbo. And the top five arrival cities are Chongqing, Wuhan, Chengdu, Dazhou, and Xi'an.

China Railway Corporation predicted an expected 356 million trips during the festival, up 9.7 percent from last year. The Spring Festival travel period sees massive amounts of human traffic over 40 days, and has been called the largest annual human migration in the world.