Suiyuan
Historical province of China
title: "Suiyuan" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["provinces-of-the-republic-of-china-(1912–1949)", "former-provinces-of-china", "geography-of-inner-mongolia", "history-of-inner-mongolia", "1954-disestablishments-in-china"] description: "Historical province of China" topic_path: "geography" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suiyuan" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Historical province of China ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox former subdivision"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| native_name | 綏遠省 |
| conventional_long_name | Suiyuan Province |
| common_name | Suiyuan |
| status_text | Province of China |
| capital | |
| today | |
| year_start | |
| event_start | Established as a province of the ROC |
| event2 | Reorganised as a province of the PRC |
| date_event2 | 1949 |
| event3 | Incorporated into the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region |
| date_event3 | 1954 |
| event_pre | |
| date_end | |
| image_map | Republic of China edcp location map (disputed territories) Suiyüan.svg |
| image_map_caption | Suiyuan as claimed by the Republic of China |
| p1 | |
| flag_p1 | Flag of the Republic of China.svg |
| s1 | Inner Mongolia |
| flag_s1 | Flag of China.svg |
| stat_year1 | 1949 |
| stat_pop1 | 2,000,000+ |
| :: |
| native_name = 綏遠省 | conventional_long_name = Suiyuan Province | common_name = Suiyuan | subdivision = | nation = | status_text = Province of China | capital = Kweisui | today = | year_start = 1928 | year_end = | event_start = Established as a province of the ROC | date_start = | event2 = Reorganised as a province of the PRC | date_event2 = 1949 | event3 = Incorporated into the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region | date_event3 = 1954 | era = | event_pre = | date_pre = | event_end = | date_end = | image_map = Republic of China edcp location map (disputed territories) Suiyüan.svg | image_map_caption = Suiyuan as claimed by the Republic of China | p1 = Suiyuan Special Administrative Region | flag_p1 = Flag of the Republic of China.svg | s1 = Inner Mongolia | flag_s1 = Flag of China.svg | stat_year1 = 1949 | stat_area1 = | stat_pop1 = 2,000,000+
Suiyuan (; abbreviation: 綏, pinyin: suí) was a historical province of China. Its capital was Kweisui (also written Guisui), now Hohhot. The area Suiyuan covered is approximated by today's prefecture-level cities of Hohhot, Baotou, Wuhai, Ordos, Bayan Nur, and parts of Ulanqab, all part of Inner Mongolia. Suiyuan was named after a district in the capital established during the Qing Dynasty.
In the early 1930s, Suiyuan was occupied by the Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan, who mined Suiyuan's iron, reorganized the province's finances, and brought over 4,000 acre of land under cultivation for the first time. Most of the work and settlement of Suiyuan at this time was done by Shanxi farmer-soldiers under the direction of retired officers from Yan's army. Yan's control of Suiyuan was sufficient to cause one visiting reporter to refer to Suiyuan as a "colony" of Shanxi.
The Suiyuan campaign took place during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Suiyuan became a part of the puppet state of Mengjiang from 1937 to 1945 under Japanese rule.
During the Chinese Civil War, in 1935 Communist leader Mao Zedong had promised Mongol leaders a "unified autonomous" administration, which would include all "historic Mongol lands" within China, in exchange for Mongol support against the Kuomintang. This promise included the declaration that, "under no circumstances should other [non-Mongol ethnic groups] be allowed to occupy the land of the Inner Mongolian nation". However, following the communist victory in 1949, the administrators of the soon-to-be "Mongolian" territories with Han Chinese majorities, the biggest of which was Suiyuan with a population of over 2 million, resisted annexation by the new Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In 1954, Mao reached a compromise with Suiyuan, which involved the Mongols' taking over the administration of Suiyuan but stipulated that the Han natives not be expelled from the territory. Uradyn Bulag, professor at the University of Cambridge, thus noted that the Mongols' territorial ambitions against Suiyuan "ironically" resulted in them becoming a "small minority within their own autonomous region".
In popular culture
- W. Douglas Burden references Suiyuan in his book Look to the Wilderness, in the chapter "On the Sino-Mongolian Frontier".
References
References
- ''Untaming the Frontier in Anthropology, Archaeology, and History''. (2023:46). United States: University of Arizona Press.
- Gillin, Donald G. ''Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province 1911–1949''. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1967. Page 128.
- Bulag, Uradyn. (2010). "Chinese Society: Change, Conflict, and Resistance". Taylor & Francis.
- (1956). "Look to the Wilderness". Little, Brown and Company.
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