Gateway to the Mongolian Grasslands — the Inner Mongolia capital where Tibetan Buddhist temples with golden roofs sit beside Han Chinese neighbourhood streets, two hours north the Xilamuren grasslands stretch to the horizon with yurt camps and horse rides, and shao mai dumplings filled with mutton are eaten at every meal
Hohhot (Huhehot in Mongolian, meaning 'Blue City') is the capital of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northern China — a Han-majority city that serves as the gateway to the Mongolian steppe ecosystem and retains a distinct Mongol and Tibetan Buddhist cultural character within China. The city's historic centre around Dazhao Temple and Xilituzhao Temple contains the finest surviving concentration of Tibetan Buddhist architecture in northern China — built during the Qing dynasty (17th–18th century) when the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors patronised Mongolian Buddhism as a tool of political unit…
The area around modern Hohhot has been contested between Chinese agricultural civilisations and nomadic steppe peoples for at least 2,500 years — the Great Wall (built and rebuilt from the Warring States period through the Ming dynasty) was specifically designed to defend against incursions from this region. The Xiongnu confederation controlled the steppe in the 3rd century BCE when the First Emperor of China built the first Great Wall. Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire emerged from the steppe north of here in the early 13th century. Hohhot was founded as Guihua ('Returning to Civilisation') in 15…