Yinchuan

About Yinchuan

Yinchuan grew up as an oasis on the Yellow River plain, protected from the deserts to the west by the long wall of the Helan Mountains. Irrigation canals have watered its fields for more than two thousand years, earning the region the nickname of a land of fish and rice north of the Great Wall. In the eleventh century it became the capital of the Western Xia, a powerful Tangut kingdom later destroyed by the Mongols.

The great earthen tombs of the Western Xia kings still rise at the foot of the mountains west of the city, near rock carvings at Helankou left by ancient herders. Today Yinchuan is the capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, home to many Hui Muslims, so mosques, hand-pulled beef noodles and slow-roasted lamb are part of everyday life.

The city makes an excellent base for a mix of history and desert: the Zhenbeibao film studio in two old fortresses, the Ming Great Wall at Shuidonggou and the vineyards along the eastern foothills of the Helan Mountains, now one of China's leading wine regions. Summers are dry and sunny, and the sky over the plain is enormous.