Types of Liuyang Fireworks: A Complete Guide to Every Category

1. Aerial Shells (升空弹)

A paper or plastic ball packed with "stars" around a burst charge, lifted to height by a separate lift powder. The burst is what you see in the sky — chrysanthemum, peony, willow, brocade, ring, palm. Consumer calibers run 1.75" to 3". Anything above 3" is professional display shell territory and needs a licensed shooter.

In Liuyang we still build shells the traditional way: pasted paper hemispheres, hand-loaded stars, time fuse cut to the tenth of a second. That's the reason a good chrysanthemum trails evenly instead of tearing itself apart.

• Chrysanthemum (菊花) — stars trail outward in a full sphere with visible tails
• Peony (牡丹) — same sphere, but stars burn clean without tails
• Willow (柳树) — slow-burning stars that fall like drooping branches
• Brocade (锦冠) — dense gold or silver trails, cascades to the ground
• Ring / Saturn (圆环) — stars set on a disc to paint a clean ring
• Palm (棕榈) — thick comet trails radiating out like palm fronds

The chrysanthemum is the shape every other break is measured against — pasted paper hemispheres, hand-rolled stars and tenth-of-a-second time fuse cuts. The full craft, calibers and FOB ranges sit in our chrysanthemum shell fireworks guide.

2. Multi-Shot Cakes (组合烟花)

A bundle of fused tubes — 9 to 500 shots — that fire in sequence off a single green fuse. The export workhorse. A 200-gram cake is the US consumer limit; 500-gram cakes dominate Europe, Canada and Australia; kilo-class cakes move into the semi-pro bracket.

Sequence design is where one cake factory separates itself from another. Fan spreads, Z-patterns, simultaneous finales — all of it is engineered by the internal chain fuse. Cake fireworks are still Liuyang's single largest export category by volume; the full breakdown of 200g, 500g and kilo-class cakes — internal chain-fuse design, FOB ranges and how to spec a sequence — sits in our multi-shot cake fireworks guide.

3. Roman Candles (罗马烛光)

One long tube that ejects a star every few seconds. Consumer Roman candles are usually 10–15mm bore with colored stars; pro versions go to 30mm+ and fire comet tails or small mini-shells. Angled into racks and synced with aerial breaks, Roman candles are the tool we reach for when a show needs sweeping low-level motion.

Bore size — not shot count — is what really decides altitude, star size and category placement. The full breakdown of 1.5", 1.75" and 2.5" calibers, color-pearl and magic-shot effects, and FOB pricing sits in our Roman candle fireworks buyer's guide.

4. Fountains / Ground Fireworks (喷花)

Stationary devices that throw sparks and flame upward. No projectile, so they sit in the safest consumer slot. Liuyang turns out everything from 15-second cone fountains to multi-phase cylindrical fountains that run for minutes, shifting through gold, silver, red, green, blue and purple with crackle and whistle built in.

In markets where aerial product is restricted — much of Germany, parts of the UK, and several US states — fountains carry the season. The full breakdown of cone, cylindrical and large conic builds, mine effects, burn duration and FOB ranges sits in our fountain fireworks buyer's guide.

5. Firecrackers (鞭炮 / 爆竹)

The oldest firework, and the one Liuyang was founded on. A paper tube of flash powder, usually fused into long strings of hundreds or thousands. Credit still goes to Li Tian (李畋), a Tang-dynasty monk from Liuyang who is said to have invented the first firecracker around 1,400 years ago.

Today we still ship red string crackers (挂鞭), thunder bombs (雷王) and ground-bloom flowers (地旋花) in quantity for Chinese New Year, weddings, and export markets across Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The full breakdown of build families — Triangle and Football singles, Thunder and Spanish Crackers, Match Cracker strings and Latin-American Bateria — plus FOB ranges and the NEC limits that decide which markets each format clears, sits in our Liuyang firecrackers buyer's guide.

6. Sparklers (手持烟花 / 仙女棒)

Wire or tube coated with slow-burning composition. Easy to ship — in most markets sparklers clear customs without the paperwork aerial product needs. Main formats we run:

• Wire sparklers — gold or color, 8" to 36", the classic
• Morning glory (手持喷花) — handheld tubes with colored flame
• Birthday cake sparklers — short, food-contact rated
• Wedding sparklers — 20–36", long burn for send-off photos
• Shaped sparklers — hearts, stars, numbers for event cakes

The full breakdown of the five build families — short wire, long wedding wire, Morning Glory tube, food-contact birthday cake and shaped / electric sparklers — plus FOB ranges and the UN0337 / 1.4S compliance route that makes sparklers the easiest pyrotechnic SKU to put on a mixed container, sits in our Liuyang sparklers buyer's guide.

7. Rockets (火箭 / 窜天猴)

A motor tube and a stick. Cheap aerial effect without a mortar. Bottle rockets (窜天猴) are the childhood firework for most of Asia and the Americas; larger sticks carry real shell payloads. Aerial cakes have pushed rockets out of the professional market, but they still move in serious volume wherever they're legal on the consumer side.

In regulated markets like the EU and the UK the stick rocket itself has been banned and replaced by stickless Saturn / Jupiter missile batteries — short whistle-propellant tubes glued and fused into a cardboard block. The full breakdown of the five build families — bottle rocket 窜天猴, stick rocket, Whistling Moon Traveller, 20S–206S Saturn missile batteries and 4″–11″ display missiles — plus FOB ranges and the country-by-country ban list that decides which format ships, sits in our Liuyang rocket fireworks buyer's guide.

8. Wheels / Pinwheels (转轮 / 风火轮)

Spinning devices — nailed to a post, set on the ground, or flown into the air.

• Catherine wheels — single or multi-phase, color and sound changes built in
• Ground spinners (地旋) — small, fast, a circle of sparks on the pavement
• Helicopter spinners (飞碟) — spin, lift off, climb while rotating

Wheels are the firework category most importers under-order — and the only consumer-firework family that spins, lifts and rotates on a single fuse. The full breakdown of the three build families — Catherine wheels, ground spinners 地旋, helicopter / aerial spinners 飞碟 — plus FOB ranges and the EU / US compliance picture for the spinning category, sits in our Liuyang wheel & pinwheel fireworks buyer's guide.

9. Smoke Products (烟雾产品)

Smoke balls, tubes and grenades. Originally a military training product, now dominated by photography, gender reveals, paintball, airsoft and film. Colors run red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, pink and white; burn times from 30 seconds to 2+ minutes. Newer cool-burn formulations have made them viable for indoor video shoots where a hot composition would be a fire risk. Full breakdown of the five build families, eight color SKUs and FOB ranges in the dedicated Liuyang Smoke Products wholesale guide.

10. Novelty Fireworks (玩具烟花)

The lowest-hazard slot — F1 in Europe, 1.4G/1.4S in UN classification. Fewest import restrictions, so they ship into markets where real fireworks can't go:

• Snaps / poppers (摔炮) — throw on the ground, pops
• Party poppers (拉炮) — pull-string confetti
• Smoke balls (烟球) — colored smoke, no bang
• Pharaoh's serpents (法老蛇) — tablets that grow into ash snakes
• Parachutes (降落伞) — small aerial device, toy parachute on the way down
• Shaped novelties — tanks, cars, animals that roll and spark

Full breakdown of the six Liuyang novelty build families, 12 featured SKUs and the US CPSC 16 CFR 1500.85 / EU F1 / UN0337 / UN0336 compliance mapping in the dedicated Liuyang Novelty Fireworks wholesale guide.

11. Professional Aerial Shells (专业礼花弹)

Fired from steel or fiberglass mortars using a separate lift charge. Calibers run 3" (75mm) up to 12" (300mm), with apogee between 60 and 300+ meters depending on size. This is the category Liuyang is genuinely known for — and where symmetry, color and effect variety show real craftsmanship:

• Single-break — one burst, one pattern, executed cleanly
• Multi-break — two or three bursts stacked vertically in the same casing
• Pattern shells — stars set on a disc to draw hearts, smiley faces, letters
• Salutes — flash powder, white flash, heavy concussion for beat drops
• Specialty — glitter, strobe, crossette, flying fish, tourbillion

The full breakdown of the five burst types, the caliber-to-apogee table and the 1.3G sourcing reality sits in our Liuyang professional aerial shells buyer's guide.

12. Stage & Close-Proximity Pyrotechnics (舞台烟火)

Built for concerts, TV, film and corporate events — anywhere people stand close. Smaller charges, tighter tolerances, cold-burning where possible:

• Gerbs / stage fountains — controlled spark jets, various colors and heights
• Flame projectors — clean fire columns, propane or pyrotechnic
• Concussions / flash pots — the bang that lands with the beat
• Cold spark machines (冷焰火) — titanium-based, far cooler than pyro sparks at the rated clearance
• Confetti & streamer launchers — pyro or compressed air

Cold-flame stage effects are our fastest-growing export — weddings and indoor events have driven demand from a niche to a core catalog line in under five years. The full breakdown of all five close-proximity families, the cold-flame vs. gerb decision, how to read throw / duration / clearance specs, and the T1 / T2 and NFPA 1126 proximate-audience rules sits in our stage & close-proximity pyrotechnics buyer's guide.