Ice sculptures illuminating with colorful neon lights of the 39th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival are attracting global visitors the provincial capital of Heilongjiang Province in northeast China.

The giant sculptures and installations are made by more than 150,000 cubic meters of ice and snow in a park covering 810,000 square meters.

Among the highlights are an ice tower measuring 43 meters high, a 500-meter ice slide and a 120-meter-high sky wheel in the shape of a snowflake where visitors can have a stunning view of the illuminated park at night.

Famous for its rich ice and snow resources, Harbin put forward three ice and snow-themed parks and a variety of tourism activities for this year's festival which kicked off on Thursday.

Light show and fireworks were also displayed at the opening ceremony of the festival.

"It's my first time in winter Harbin. I have never seen such kind of show before. Actually, it's really fantastic. I think that China is the No.1 in such kind of shows, I mean light shows and ice shows. I am sure that it will be really good for foreigners to come here again," said Alexander Balitskiy, a Russian visitor to the ice and snow festival.

A signature event of Harbin, the annual festival initiated in 1985 has become one of the world's four largest ice and snow festivals, along with Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada's Quebec Winter Carnival and Norway's Holmenkollen Ski Festival.