Xilinhot

Xilinhot (zh-sp|s=锡林浩特|p=Xīlínhàotè) is a county-level city which serves as the seat of government for the Xilin Gol league in Inner Mongolia, China. It has a jurisdiction area of 14,785 km², and a population of 177,000, with 149,000 being in the Xilinhot urban area.

The elevation is about 3250 feet. The city is 610 and 620 km from Beijing and Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, respectively. The city has an airport that has regular flights to Beijing from Air China and daily flights to Hohhot from Shandong Airlines. The K996/K736 Train connects Xilinhot with Hohhot and departs daily with the exception of Tuesdays and Saturdays.

The historic centre includes an artistic temple. The "Naadam Festival", a Mongolian feast, is celebrated here every year. Naadam is a gathering of the Mongolian people for wrestling, horse trading, costume contests, horse racing, etc. It's their summer festival and is generally very colorful with costumes and colorful yurts set up to serve food and sell trinkets and supplies.

In Xilinhot is a market of significance, where cattle is of particular importance.

Xilinhot is a big center for energy. They have both a massive coal mine on the edge of town and wind generating farms located nearby. We were told by the engineers located on-site that there were currently 200 individual turbines now, with another 200 to be built in the coming year. The current set of 200 turbines are operated by 7 different energy companies.

The Genghis culture is very prominent with pictures, tapestries and monumental statues of Genghis Khan in every home, shop and street corner.

Tourists can stay at nearby yurt resorts where there is a large yurt for dining surrounded by smaller individual yurts for sleeping. The surrounding countryside is rolling grasslands populated by Mongolians who have horses, sheep, goats and some cows. Meals consisted of mutton, beef, cabbages, and other fruit and vegetables.

References in popular culture

In World War Z by Max Brooks, Xilinhot is the capital of the People's Republic of China after Beijing falls to the zombie hordes. It is later destroyed by a nuclear missile from the nuclear submarine "Zheng He" in order to end the civil war.

External links

* [http://www.xilinhaote.gov.cn/ Xilinhot Government Website]