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Grasslands and deserts in Inner Mongolia
Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 26/10/2026
In late October 2026, I travelled from Baotou to Hohhot to explore two contrasting landscapes of Inner Mongolia: the Kubuqi Desert and the Xilamuren Grasslands. As I have said in earlier articles, it is a joy to be back in China, and I continue to value deeply the freedom and democracy I experience here. That joy framed the whole journey: it was there in the hot pot and Mongolian hospitality, in the desert restoration, in the Buddhist heritage and in Hohhot’s museum exhibitions. What follows is a personal record of that exciting autumn journey
Baotou in Inner Mongolia
This is the longest “street” name I have spotted in Baotou.
“吃火锅还是得这里” = “For hot pot, this is still the place to go.”
The “Hotpot street” in Baotou:
A day trip to the Kubuqi desert
On the road to the desert, we crossed the Yellow River on a pontoon bridge.
The Kubuqi Desert is located south of Baotou, across the Yellow River on the northern edge of the Ordos Plateau. From Baotou we travelled southward, crossing the river, to reach the Kubuqi. It is the northern component of the broader Ordos Desert, which is the western part of the much bigger Gobi desert.
I stood with my bare feet in the hot sand of the Kubuqi desert:
There we go, straight into the Kubuqi desert:
Just driving up the sand dunes without knowing what’s behind the top.
Video of the
Kubuqi desert panorama:
Pushing back the desert: China’s greening efforts in Kubuqi
China has undertaken one of the world’s largest campaigns against desertification, led by the Three-North Shelter belt programme. The government aimed to plant about 36,000 square kilometres of forest each year between 2021 and 2025 (an area larger than Belgium) and treated more than 13 million hectares of desertified land in five years. Forest cover in the programme area has risen from roughly 5 per cent in 1978 to 14 per cent, while wind erosion and sandstorm frequency have fallen sharply.
The Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia has been intensively restored since the 1950s. The Kubuqi model combines government support, private investment and local employment. Techniques include straw chequerboards to stabilise dunes, large-scale tree planting and a solar “Photovoltaic Great Wall” that shades and stabilises sand while generating power. About one third of the desert, over 6,000 square kilometres, has been greened, with a 50 per cent restoration target for 2025 and full restoration by 2030. The work has created jobs, reduced poverty and received recognition from the UN.
Mongolian dinner
That same evening after the exciting desert trip, my long-time friend Sun Yidan and I had a lavish, extensive dinner at an authentic Mongolian restaurant. Her friends joined us as well, making about eight people in total. There was so much delicious food!
There’s nothing wrong with driving a Porsche and being patriotic about China.
The vast Mongolian grasslands
The Xilamuren Grassland lies across rolling green hills beneath a wide blue sky. Its name comes from Mongolian and means yellow river or yellow water, referring to the local Xilamuren River rather than the Huanghe. Visitors are drawn by the vast open meadows, fresh air and broad views in every direction. Horses graze and run across the grassland, and white yurts stand out clearly against the green landscape. Visitors can sample local food, learn about Mongolian hospitality and watch the sky change colour at sunset. Xilamuren offers a chance to slow down, breathe clean air and experience a quieter side of Inner Mongolia. For travellers seeking space and calm, it provides a memorable break from busy city life.
This sign marks Darhan Muminggan United Banner, a county-level administrative division in Inner Mongolia. The ‘United’ in its name reflects the 1952 merger of the historic Darhan and Muminggan banners. Its long official name appears in Mongolian script at the top, Chinese characters in the middle, and an English/Pinyin rendering at the bottom The imposing sign stands in amusing contrast to the sparse grassland and scattered yurts around it.
Mongolian Buddhism is a unique Vajrayāna tradition known for its history, rituals like the Tsam dance, and its adaptation to nomadic life, which includes the yurt-temple architectural form. The temple near Xilamuren, the Puhui Temple, is a significant 18th-century Tibetan Buddhist monastery built in a Sino-Tibetan style. The “yurt-shaped” association likely comes from the traditional yurts that populate the surrounding grassland and the broader, profound connection between the yurt and Buddhist practice in Mongolia.
The Mongolia Museum in Hohhot
The Inner Mongolia Museum in Hohhot features a 1:1 replica of the Tiangong space station’s Tianhe core module in its “Feitian Shenzhou” exhibition, along with space artifacts such as a Shenzhou return capsule and rocket models. Inner Mongolia is also central to China’s space program, as the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center is physically located in Alxa League’s Ejine Banner, which now hosts commercial space infrastructure and recent rocket launches.
The exhibition “河山辉映 奕奕青城” (roughly, “The Splendid Landscape Reflects the Radiant Blue City”) , showcases over 700 artifacts to narrate Hohhot’s 2,400-year history as a city. The exhibits highlight its role as a frontier town, its significance in the Northern Wei dynasty, and its history as a melting pot of nomadic and agricultural civilisations
Next week …
… we will leave Inner Mongolia for Orange Island in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province