Erenhot ( mn, ; , commonly shortened to Ereen or Erlian) is a
county-level city
A county-level municipality (), county-level city or county city, formerly known as prefecture-controlled city (1949–1970: ; 1970–1983: ), is a Administrative divisions of China#County level (3rd), county-level administrative divi ...
of the
Xilin Gol
Xilingol, Xilin Gol, Shiliin Gol or Xilinguole Aimag/League (; mn, , , , ) is one of 3 leagues of Inner Mongolia. The seat is Xilinhot, and the area is . The league's economy is based on mining and agriculture.
Xilingol borders Mongolia to th ...
League, in
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
Autonomous Region, located in the
Gobi Desert
The Gobi Desert (Chinese: 戈壁 (沙漠), Mongolian: Говь (ᠭᠣᠪᠢ)) () is a large desert or brushland region in East Asia, and is the sixth largest desert in the world.
Geography
The Gobi measures from southwest to northeast an ...
along the Sino-Mongolian border, across from the
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
n town of
Zamyn-Üüd
Zamyn-Üüd ( mn, Замын-Үүд; , ''road's gate'') is a sum (district) of Dornogovi Province in southeastern Mongolia. Its population was 11,527 in 2008.
History
Zamyn-Üüd's actual name comes from the former Dzamiin Üüde settlement loca ...
. There are 74,197 inhabitants (2010 census) and the elevation is .
Climate
Erenhot experiences a cold
desert climate
The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk''), is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...
(
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...
''BWk'') with long, very dry, and bitter winters and short, hot summers. Monthly daily average temperatures range from in January to in July, with an annual mean of . The city receives 3,232 hours (about 73% of the possible total) of bright sunshine per year, and clear, sunny, dry weather dominates year-round; due to the aridity, the
diurnal temperature variation
In meteorology, diurnal temperature variation is the variation between a high air temperature and a low temperature that occurs during the same day.
Temperature lag
Temperature lag is an important factor in diurnal temperature variation: peak d ...
frequently approaches and exceeds . Over two-thirds of the sparse of annual rainfall occurs from June to August alone. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 67% in July to 78% in February, the city is one of the sunniest nationwide and receives 3,232 hours of bright sunshine annually.
Economy
The border town is a rail port city and the largest hub for cross border trade between Mongolia and China.
When authorities opened the town up in 1992 to international trade, Erenhot underwent a transformation growing from 8,000 people then to an estimated 100,000 people including migrant workers.
The Dabusan Nur salt lake to the north of Erenhot provided an economic boom to the city's chemical industry during the late 1990s.
The lake has provided Erenhot with a large water supply which also contributed to the rapid growth of the city and economy.
As a destination for wholesalers moving goods across the border, the city hosts a large trading market, International Trade City. Built in 2006 the mall is "a block-long, three-story wholesale market that houses 527 tenants who sell silk fabrics, rabbit and fox furs and other commodities."
Transport
![Erenhot_Station](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Erenhot_Station.jpg)
Erenhot is a stop on the
Trans-Mongolian Railway
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, map_state = collapsed
, embedded =
The Trans-Mongolian Railway follows an ancient tea-caravan route from China to Russia and connects Ulan-Ude, on the Trans–Baikal ( Trans–Siberian) railway in Ru ...
, making it one of two international railway crossings in Inner Mongolia as of 2010 (the other is at
Manzhouli
Manzhouli (; mn, Манжуур хот; ) is a sub-prefectural city located in Hulunbuir prefecture-level city, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. Located on the border with Russia, it is a major land port of entry. It has an area of and ...
on the Sino-Russian border).
The rail link has struggled under the strain of growing trade with Mongolia and several new rail lines are under construction to ease the burden including two railways from different parts of China to a border port in
East Ujimqin Banner
East Ujimqin Banner ( Mongolian: ''Jegün Ujumučin qosiɣu''; ) is a banner in the northeast of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. It is under the administration of Xilin Gol League.
Geography and climate
East ...
.
International trains change
bogies
A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...
in here, because of the
break-of-gauge
With railways, a break of gauge occurs where a line of one track gauge (the distance between the rails, or between the wheels of trains designed to run on those rails) meets a line of a different gauge. Trains and rolling stock generally cannot ...
between China and
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
. China uses the
standard gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...
, while Mongolia uses the
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
n
1520 mm gauge. The manual
bogie exchange
Bogie exchange is a system for operating railway wagons on two or more gauges to overcome difference in the track gauge. To perform a bogie exchange, a car is converted from one gauge to another by removing the bogies or trucks (the chassis cont ...
is to be supplemented with the faster, automatic
Variable gauge axle
A variable gauge system allows railway vehicles in a train to travel across a break of gauge between two railway networks with different track gauges.
For through operation, a train must be equipped with special bogies holding variable gauge wh ...
system of the
SUW 2000
SUW 2000 is a Polish variable gauge system that allows trains to cross a break of gauge. It is interoperable with the German Rafil Type V system (built by the Radsatzfabrik Ilsenburg).
History
The SUW 2000 system was designed by Ryszard Suwalski. ...
-type made by
ZNTK.
The town is also the northern terminus of
China National Highway 208
China National Highway 208 (G208) runs from Erenhot, Inner Mongolia to Xichuan County, Henan province. It is 990 kilometres in length and runs south from Erenhot, via Shanxi towards Henan province.
Route and distance
See also
* China National H ...
, which runs south to
Changzhi
Changzhi () is a prefecture-level city in the southeast of Shanxi Province, China, bordering the provinces of Hebei and Henan to the northeast and east, respectively. Historically, the city was one of the 36 administrative areas (see Administrat ...
,
Shanxi
Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...
.
Erenhot Saiwusu International Airport has scheduled flights to Beijing, Hohhot and
Tongliao
Tongliao (; mn, ''Tüŋliyou qota'', Mongolian Cyrillic: Байшинт хот) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Inner Mongolia, People's Republic of China. The area is and as of the 2020 census, its population was 2,873,168 (3,139,153 i ...
.
Dinosaurs
![Kissing Sauropods in then Gobi Desert (Erenhot, China)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Kissing_Sauropods_in_then_Gobi_Desert_%28Erenhot%2C_China%29.JPG)
The area around the town, especially a salt lake known to paleontologists as Iren Dabasu or Iren Nor ('' mn, ereen'' = colourful, ' = salt, ' = lake) to the east, is known for the discovery of a number of different dinosaurs. The city houses a dinosaur museum, and in 2006 a big arch in form of two
Sauropoda
Sauropoda (), whose members are known as sauropods (; from '' sauro-'' + '' -pod'', 'lizard-footed'), is a clade of saurischian ('lizard-hipped') dinosaurs. Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their bo ...
was built on the highway southward. In 2007, a number of smaller figures of different species were added.
See also
*
List of dinosaur-bearing rock formations
This list of dinosaur-bearing rock formations is a list of geologic formations in which dinosaur fossils have been documented.
Containing body fossils
* List of stratigraphic units with dinosaur body fossils
** List of stratigraphic units with few ...
*
Gigantoraptor
''Gigantoraptor'' () is a genus of large oviraptorosaur dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous period. It is known from the Iren Dabasu Formation of Inner Mongolia, where the first remains were found in 2005.
''Gigantoraptor'' wa ...
*
Alectrosaurus
''Alectrosaurus'' (; meaning "alone lizard") is a genus of tyrannosauroid theropod dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous period, about some 96 million years ago in what is now the Iren Dabasu Formation.
It was a medium-sized, mo ...
References
External links
Official website*
August 7, 2007 (China.org.cn)
AsiaObscura.com
{{County-level divisions of Inner Mongolia
Cities in Inner Mongolia
China–Mongolia border crossings