Inner Mongolia, also called Nei Mongol Zizhiqu (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region), is a large autonomous region in northern China. China’s autonomous regions operate under the Chinese government, but they also have powers to pass laws related to the ethnic groups that inhabit them. Inner Mongolia is part of the traditional homeland of the Mongol people. However, Mongols now make up less than a fifth of the region’s population. The majority are ethnic Chinese.
Inner Mongolia has an area of 454,600 square miles (1,177,500 square kilometers). Its capital is Hohhot. Inner Mongolia forms a long crescent shape along China’s northern border with Russia and the independent nation of Mongolia.
Grassland covers much of Inner Mongolia. Most farmland and industry is in the south. The forested mountains of the Greater Hinggan Range rise in the far northeast. The desert known as the Gobi extends into the northwest. The climate is dry, with frigid winters and warm summers.
Inner Mongolia’s many mineral reserves include coal, iron ore, lead, and zinc. Industries in the region manufacture fertilizer, machinery, steel, and textiles. Farmers raise corn, linseed, soybeans, sugar beets, and wheat. The vast grasslands support the raising of livestock, especially camels, cattle, goats, horses, pigs, and sheep.
Inner Mongolia lies roughly north of the Great Wall of China. It has long been a border region between settled farmers to the south and groups of nomadic herders to the north. The Mongols moved into the region by about the A.D. 1000’s. Mongol armies conquered China in the 1200’s but were driven out in the 1300’s.
The Manchus, a people from what is now northeastern China, conquered the Mongol lands near the Chinese border (now Inner Mongolia) in the 1630’s. They seized control of China in 1644. In the late 1600’s, the Manchus conquered additional Mongol lands farther north, which they administered as Outer Mongolia. During the 1800’s, many Chinese farmers settled in Inner Mongolia.
In 1911, during the Chinese Revolution against the Manchus, Outer Mongolia (now the nation of Mongolia) declared its independence. China continued to control Inner Mongolia. In the 1930’s, Japan seized parts of northeastern China, including eastern Inner Mongolia. It controlled these areas until the end of World War II (1939-1945). In 1947, Chinese Communists proclaimed Inner Mongolia the first autonomous region of China.
