Jim McMahon/Mapman®

Every winter, artists from around the world travel to Harbin, China—one of the world’s coldest cities—to craft massive sculptures, like this one, from ice and snow. How do they do it? The sculptors start with blocks of ice cut from the frozen Songhua River nearby. Then they use chainsaws to create rough shapes, before switching to drills and chisels to carve details. In the end, more than 2,000 wintry works of art grace Harbin—but they don’t last long. By February or March, rising temperatures melt the frozen wonderland away.