The largest city in Inner Mongolia, Baotou was once an arid and undeveloped region, inhabited by Mongolian herders of sheep and horses. Today, it is an industrial community. The city is divided into three principal areas – Donghe, the oldest part of city lies to the east, while the western area consists of Qingshan, the main shopping district, and Kundulun, the industrial hub. While Qingshan resembles any modern Chinese city, with its tower blocks and array of shops, with large, bleak squares, and no sign of greenery. Donghe, a pleasant quarter of streets lined with mud-brick houses and their cluttered courtyards, lends color to this fairly drab city.

The region’s best preserved Lamaist monastery, Wudang Zhao lies 70 km northeast of Baotou in a tranquil valley. Built in 1749 in the Tibetan flat-roofed style, it quickly became an important place of pilgrimage, and was home to several hundred monks belonging to the Yellow Hat Sect. It houses a collection of Buddhist murals from the Qing era. Just 10 km south of Baotou lies a section of the Yellow River that inscribes a huge northerly loop enclosing an area called the Ordos. The irrigation projects made possible by the Yellow River have made this area a fertile oasis. There is little to see besides the river, but its sluggish progress through the flat, cultivated landscape is impressive.

South of Baotou is the great Gobi, a desert that stretches across the northern reaches of Inner Mongolia and the Republic of Mongolia. The Resonant Sand Gorge, 60 km south of Baotou, is filled with sand dunes, some of which soar 90 m high. Visitors slip and slide on the dunes, and its name refers to the sound made by the falling sand. Paragliding and camel rides are also available, and a chairlift shuttles visitors from the main road.