Baotou

About Baotou

Baotou is the second-largest city by urban population in Inner Mongolia, China. Governed as a prefecture-level city, its built-up (or metro) area within its five urban districts is home to 2,261,089 people while the total population is 2,709,378 as of the 2020 census.

Baotou's southern border is delineated by the Yellow river. The city's namesake, literally translating to "place with deer", is Mongolian, bringing about the nickname of "Lucheng", meaning "City of Deer". Alternatively, Baotou is known as the "City of Steel in the Grasslands", since steel was a major industry in the city which is built on the Mongolian grassland and contains a large grassland park. Today, Baotou mines and refines over half of the rare-earth minerals produced in the world. This has led to environmental contamination near the industrial sites.

The area now known as Baotou was inhabited by nomads, some of whose descendants would later be categorized as Mongols. Near the end of the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), Lü Bu, a particularly noteworthy warrior, was born in today's Jiuyuan District of Baotou.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.