May Day is a spring festival that goes back to ancient times, and which was traditionally celebrated in northern European countries. With emigration, the festival has taken root in many other parts of the world as well.

Some Communists and Socialists also connect May Day with workers rights, but that is not related to the traditional May Day.

May 1, 1707, was also the day the Act of Union came into effect, joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The earliest May Day celebrations are connected to Celtic festivities and to the Roman goddess of flowers, Floralia. May 1 was connected in people's minds with the first day of summer. This also explains why the summer solstice (June 21) is Midsummer, and a long way away from the start of traditional May. It was also a time when the feilds had finished being sown with cereal seeds, so there was a natural lull in farm activities.

May Day was a pagan festival, and as people became Christians it lost its religious importance and has, instead, become a popular festival of flowers and dancing around a maypole with its may ribbons, and crowning a May Queen with a garland of flowers. Morris dancing is also a feature of May Day.

It is easier to celebrate May day in rural areas than cities because its main focus is on village greens.