Where to Stay in Baotou, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

What is Baotou known for?

It stands on the north bank of the Yellow River, on the edge of the Mongol grasslands and the Ordos desert, and it grew into a giant of steel and rare earth, its mines feeding the world, while a famous old lamasery stands white-walled in the hills nearby. The steppe rolls away to the north. Steel and steppe mark the city.

What are the main landmarks in Baotou?

The Wudang Lamasery is the wonder near Baotou. The great white monastery, the largest Tibetan Buddhist house in Inner Mongolia, climbs a hillside in the mountains north of the city, its halls stacked up the slope. Old temple-forts dot the steppe.

The Meida Zhao and the ruins of caravan towns lie scattered across the grasslands, while the Yellow River runs broad along the southern edge of the city.

What is the history of Baotou?

Baotou began as a trading post on the grasslands. For centuries Mongol herders and Han traders met here on the Yellow River, at a place whose name means the land of the deer, and caravans crossed between the steppe and the farms of the south. Lamas built a great monastery nearby.

In the hills the Wudang Lamasery rose, the largest Tibetan Buddhist house in the region, its white halls climbing the slope. The city was made by iron and coal. When the land was found to hold vast ores of iron and rare earth, Baotou grew in a few decades into one of China's great steel towns, drawing workers from across the country.

Whole new districts spread on the plain. Mills, mines, and railways filled the once-empty steppe, and the city became a giant of heavy industry on the northern frontier. The old lamasery still stands in the hills.

Baotou keeps its mills and its grasslands by the Yellow River.

Where is Baotou?

Baotou lies on the Yellow River in western Inner Mongolia, in the north of China. The city spreads on a plain between the river and the Mongol grasslands, with the Ordos desert across the water to the south, at the foot of the Yin Mountains. Bare steppe stretches to the north.

The great river runs along the southern edge.

What is the climate of Baotou?

Baotou lies in dry continental country at the edge of the steppe. Warm summers and long, bitter winters cross the steppe, and the wind sweeps sand and cold down from the north, with little rain and wide swings from day to night. Dust storms blow off the desert in spring.

The steppe air stays dry and clear.

How do you get to Baotou?

Baotou lies on the Yellow River west of Hohhot in Inner Mongolia. Trains, an airport, and the expressway link the city east to Hohhot and Beijing and west across the desert, and roads cross the river to the Ordos. Buses reach the steppe towns around.

Most arrive by rail across the grasslands.