Wuzhong

About Wuzhong

Wuzhong is a prefecture-level city in the Ningxia autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It was known as Yinnan Prefecture before it was upgraded to a prefecture-level city in 1998. Wuzhong is located in the Northwest of China, with the Yellow River flowing through the center of the city.In 2019, Wuzhong had a population of 1.4 million. By the end of 2024, the resident population of the city was 1,415,300, an increase of 12,600 over the end of the previous year, including 833,100 residents in urban areas.

During the early and mid-19th century, the territory of today's Wuzhong—as well as much of the northern Ningxia—became a stronghold of the Jahriyya Sufi order (menhuan), which was headquartered in the town of Jinjipu (a few km south of today's Wuzhong's main urban area). Under the leadership of the order's fourth and fifth shaykhs, Ma Yide (the 1770s-1849) and Ma Hualong (d. 1871), it grew wealthy from the profits of caravan trade across Inner Mongolia, between Baotou, Huhhot and...

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