Baotou

Baotou

　　Baotou, a large industrial city in the remote regions of western Inner Mongolia, is a place that is visited mainly by people with more than just tourism in mind. The city is a huge slab of urban area that runs for about 20km, being both the largest city in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and probably the ugliest. Thankfully there are a few areas out of town that are of interest, both scenically and historically.
　　The area where Baotou now lies was once a fairly arid grassland that was populated by Mongolian nomads and grazers. Just to the north of the both the Yellow River and the Gobi Desert, the city was established in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD) on a Neolithic site. It was named "a land with deer" (Baotou) after the hundreds of these creatures that used to be found here.
　　The city came to become the largest in the province after the Communists came to power in 1950. The leaders of the revolution were quick to take advantage of the huge quantities of iron, coal and mineral deposits that the region contains. Nowadays the city is the biggest producer of iron and steel in the country, a factor that goes a long way to explain both the huge population, of about one million, and the large quantities of pollution that hangs in the atmosphere, the little treated smog from the factories in the western section of town. It also is one of the main reasons that the population here, in a remote area of former Mongolia, is dominated by Han Chinese. The Han make up 90% of the total, the Mongolians just 2.5% and the rest are of 21 other minorities, including the Daur, Tibetan and Man.
　　The city is mainly just a transit point for those not here on business, and it is mainly visited by orthodox followers of either Gelukpa Buddhism or the cult of Genghis Khan. The Buddhist lamasery, Wudangzhao, is a very popular sight set in hills covered by willow trees. The Mausoleum of Genghis Khan, that possibly holds the tyrannous warlord’s ashes, is also not far.