Manchu words for inner and outer still split the Mongol map
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, capital Hohhot, runs along two-thirds of China's border with Mongolia plus a Russian sliver. Established in 1947 from former ROC provinces, it covers about 1.2 million square kilometres—12 percent of China—and ranks third among administrative divisions by area.
Its border takes in two-thirds of China's frontier with Mongolia and a short stretch with Russia's Zabaykalsky Krai, and other major cities include Baotou, Chifeng, Tongliao and Ordos. Inner and outer come from Manchu dorgi and tulergi; some Mongols abroad prefer Southern Mongolia, a name no government has adopted. The 1947 region absorbed the old provinces of Suiyuan, Chahar, Rehe, Liaobei and Xing'an plus northern Gansu and Ningxia.
Slab Grave monuments, which Mongolian scholars link to Proto-Mongols, dot the plateau. The Hetao bend of the Yellow River changed hands for centuries between Chinese farmers and nomads such as the Xiongnu, Xianbei and Khitan; the Han general Wei Qing retook it from the Xiongnu in 127 BC, and Emperor Wu founded the Shuofang and Wuyuan commanderies there. Later a Xiongnu noble from Hetao, Liu Yuan, founded Han Zhao and opened the Sixteen Kingdoms era.
Genghis Khan united the tribes in 1206, and Kublai Khan's summer capital Shangdu, the Xanadu of legend, stood near present-day Dolonnor. The Chahar leader Ligdan Khan, a descendant of Genghis, fought the Manchus until he died of smallpox in 1634, after which his son Ejei Khan submitted and Inner Mongol nobles married into the Qing royal house. The Qing grouped the banners into six leagues, among them Xilingol and Ulanqab, with the Alxa banners kept apart. Although it officially barred Han settlement on Mongol lands, by the 18th century the Qing sent famine refugees from northern China there, and they came to farm tens of thousands of hectares.
Source: Inner Mongolia
