LANZHOU - A total of 332 Chinese Muslims flew to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, via a charter flight Tuesday evening for the annual pilgrimage.

They are the first group among 13,800 Chinese pilgrims that will head to Islam's holiest city, according to Jin Rubin, vice secretary general of the Islamic Association of China.

Forty charter flights will carry the remaining pilgrims to Mecca from Yinchuan, Urumqi, Kunming and Beijing, Jin said.

A brief departure ceremony was held for the first group of pilgrims, all from northwest China's Gansu Province, at Zhongchuan Airport in Lanzhou, provincial capital of Gansu.

In Gansu, 2,721 Muslims will go on the pilgrimage this year, the most in the past five years, according to Ma Youcheng, secretary general of the Gansu Provincial Islamic Association.

The Mecca pilgrimage, also known as the Hajj, is a Muslim religious tradition that specifies that all able-bodied Muslims who can afford to travel to Saudi Arabia must visit Mecca at least once in their lives.

China has more than 20 million Muslims, about half of whom are from the Hui ethnic group. Chinese Muslims mainly live in the western provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan, and Ningxia Hui and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions.