China · Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
Where to Stay in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
Chifeng is a city on the edge of the grasslands in eastern Inner Mongolia, China, in a land of Neolithic jade and old Mongol capitals.
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Where to stay in Chifeng
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Where you stay in Chifeng turns on the city or the grasslands. The streets around the centre keep the museum, the mosque, and the markets within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the jade and the ruins. Wide avenues cross the plain.
Guesthouses cluster in the old streets. Out toward the grasslands and the Liao ruins, the plain gives way to steppe and old capitals. A room out on the steppe trades the city for the wide grass, the ruined cities, and the summer yurts of the herders.
The grassland rolls past the edge. Stay downtown for the museum, or on the steppe for the grasslands. The red peak stands over the town.
About Chifeng
Chifeng is the red-peak city of the eastern grasslands.
What is Chifeng known for?
Named for a red-granite mountain on the border of the farmland and the steppe, it lies in the cradle of the Hongshan culture, where the earliest Chinese jade dragon was dug from the ground, and near it stand the ruined capitals and tombs of the Khitan Liao empire. The grasslands roll away north. Red crags rise by the town.
What are the main landmarks in Chifeng?
The Hongshan jade dragon is the treasure of Chifeng. The coiled jade beast, dug from a Neolithic grave and hailed as the first dragon of China, is kept in the city museum, the emblem of the region, among older finds. Old Liao capitals lie on the steppe.
The ruined upper and middle capitals of the Khitan empire spread over the grassland nearby, while the Harqin Mongol palace and the red mountain mark the country around Chifeng.
What is the history of Chifeng?
Chifeng stands on some of the oldest cultured ground in China. Six thousand years ago the people of the Hongshan culture farmed and worshipped here, and from their graves came the coiled jade dragon that many call the first dragon of China. Later the grassland bred empires.
The Khitan people rose on these plains and built the Liao empire, whose upper and middle capitals and imperial tombs still lie ruined in the country around. The town grew as a trading place of farm and steppe. On the border between the Chinese fields and the Mongol grass, Chifeng became a market where farmers and herders exchanged grain, wool, and horses, under the red mountain that gave the town its name.
Mongol princes held the land. The lords of Harqin and other banners ruled these grasslands and left a fine palace nearby. The old jade still lies in the museum.
Chifeng keeps its jade dragon and its Liao ruins on the grassland.
Where is Chifeng?
Chifeng lies in eastern Inner Mongolia in China, on the border between the northern farmland and the grassland. The city sits on a plain below red-granite hills, on the upper reaches of the Liao river, at the foot of the Greater Khingan range. Bare red hills rise around.
The grasslands open flat to the north.
What is the climate of Chifeng?
Chifeng lies in dry continental country on the edge of the steppe. Warm summers and long, cold winters cross the plain, and the wind sweeps dust and cold off the steppe, with little rain and wide swings from day to night. Dust blows off the grasslands in spring.
The steppe freezes hard through the winter.
How do you get to Chifeng?
Chifeng lies in eastern Inner Mongolia, northeast of Beijing. Fast trains and the expressway run to it from Beijing and Shenyang across the hills, and roads run north onto the grasslands. Local roads reach the steppe and the Liao ruins.
Beijing lies a few hours to the southwest.
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Updated August 2026