Dorbod (Siziwang) Banner ( mn, , , ; ) is a
banner
A banner can be a flag or another piece of cloth bearing a symbol, logo, slogan or another message. A flag whose design is the same as the shield in a coat of arms (but usually in a square or rectangular shape) is called a banner of arms. Also, ...
(
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
equivalent) in
Ulanqab,
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 ...
,
China, bordering
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 millio ...
's
Dornogovi Province to the northwest. It is located about north of
Hohhot
Hohhot,; abbreviated zh, c=呼市, p=Hūshì, labels=no formerly known as Kweisui, is the capital of Inner Mongolia in the north of the People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrative, economic and cultural center.''The ...
, the capital of Inner Mongolia.
The banner spans , and has a population of 129,372 as of 2020.
Its seat of government is located in
Wulanhua.
Toponymy
The Chinese name for the banner ''siziwang'', literally "four princes", derives from the area's historic rule by four brothers.
The Mongolian name for the banner ''dorbed'' means "of four".
History

The area of Dorbod Banner was ruled by four Mongol brothers, Sengge (), Suonuobu (), Emubu () and Yi'erzhamu (), who were descendants of
Hasar, a brother of
Genghis Khan
''Chinggis Khaan'' ͡ʃʰiŋɡɪs xaːŋbr /> Mongol script: ''Chinggis Qa(gh)an/ Chinggis Khagan''
, birth_name = Temüjin
, successor = Tolui (as regent) Ögedei Khan
, spouse =
, issue =
, house = Borjigin ...
. They led their tribe in participating in the
Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and Q ...
Qing Dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
's conquest of
Ming China in the early 17th century. In recognition of their service, the Qing court made Emubu the Duoluo Commandery Prince () in 1649 and settled their tribe in the area of modern Siziwang Banner. The title was hereditary and passed through fourteen of his descendants before the
Communist Party of China
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
abolished all hereditary titles in Inner Mongolia in 1949. The last prince, Sudanamuchaogeji (), died as a private citizen in 1957. There is a sculpture of the four original princes in Wulanhua, erected in 2003.
Geography
To its east lies
Sonid Right Banner,
Qahar Right Rear Banner, and
Qahar Right Middle Banner.
To its south lies
Wuchuan County and
Zhuozi County.
To its west lies
Darhan Muminggan United Banner.
Its north is formed by a border with
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 millio ...
.
Its seat of government, the
town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares ...
of
Wulanhua, is located away from
Hohhot
Hohhot,; abbreviated zh, c=呼市, p=Hūshì, labels=no formerly known as Kweisui, is the capital of Inner Mongolia in the north of the People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrative, economic and cultural center.''The ...
, and away from
Erlianhot.
The banner is located along the northern foothills of the
Yin Mountains, and has an average elevation of .
Most of the banner's area is grassland.
Climate
The banner experiences an average of to of precipitation annually.
Its average annual temperature is .
Administrative divisions
Dorbod Banner is divided into five
towns, three
townships
A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...
, five
sums
In mathematics, summation is the addition of a sequence of any kind of numbers, called ''addends'' or ''summands''; the result is their ''sum'' or ''total''. Beside numbers, other types of values can be summed as well: function (mathematics), fu ...
, and one other
township-level division.
The banner's five towns are
Wulanhua, , , , and .
The banner's three townships are , , and .
The banner's five sums are
Honggor Sum, , , , and .
The banner is also home to .
Demographics
As of 2009, the banner is home to 216,990 people, up from the 180,568 reported in the
2000 Census.
The banner's ethnic minorities include 18,902
Mongols
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member ...
(8.71% of the total population), 1,086
Manchus (0.50%), and 837
Hui people
The Hui people ( zh, c=, p=Huízú, w=Hui2-tsu2, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Хуэйзў, ) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the ...
(0.39%).
Economy
Mineral deposits in the banner include
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
,
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish ...
,
nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...
,
manganese
Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy u ...
,
fluorite
Fluorite (also called fluorspar) is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, CaF2. It belongs to the halide minerals. It crystallizes in isometric cubic habit, although octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon.
The Mohs sca ...
,
gypsum
Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and dr ...
,
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as stratum, rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen ...
, and
thenardite.
Spacecraft landing site
The banner served as the landing sites for China's
Shenzhou program.
A pasture known as Amugulang, located in
Honggor Sum, about north of
Wulanhua, served as the landing site for the
Shenzhou-6 spacecraft.
A specially constructed road runs from Wulanhua to Honggor to aid the recovery of the Shenzhou spacecraft, and to boost the local economy.
This road shortened the journey between the two towns from two hours to just 40 minutes.
Chinese space program recovery teams (with SUV and recovery trucks) track the progress of re-entry near the landing site and arrive shortly after landing.
Shenzhou 5
A small recovery trucks fitted with a crane lifts the capsule and places it on the rear of the truck for transportation back to the space centre.
Since the final landing of Shenzhou 11 in Dorbod Banner in 2016, new facilities have been built to hasten the retrieval process for various spacecraft.
In December 2020, the Chang'e 5 spacecraft landed in Dorbod Banner following a successful collection of Moon rocks.
See also
* Chinese space program
Notes
References
Citations
News
*
{{authority control
Ulanqab
Spaceports in China
Banners of Inner Mongolia