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Bordering on the Mongolian People's Republic in the north, Inner Mongolia is an oblong strip extending from northeast to southwest with an area of 1.2 million square kilometers, or one-eighth of the country's total. Its population of 18.77 million includes 2.09 million Mongolians, 16 million Hans and the rest Huis, Manchus, Daurs and Ewenkis. About 23 per cent of the population in Inner Mongolia live in urban areas and 77 per cent in rural areas.
Inner Mongolia belonged to parts of Rehe, Qahar and Suiyuan provinces in 1928. On May 1, 1947, an autonomous region was set up in the eastern part of present-day Inner Mongolia liberated by the People's Liberation Army. After nationwide Liberation in 1949, parts of Suiyuan, Rehe, Qahar, Ningxia and Gansu where Mongolians lived in compact communities were incorporated into the autonomous region. In 1969, under the influence of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary cliques, the Juud, Jiren and Hulunboir leagues in the east were incorporated into Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces and the regions west of the Bayannur League into Gansu and Ningxia provinces. The July 1979 decision by the State Council to return those parts to the jurisdiction of Inner Mongolia was well received there by the people of the various nationalities.
(china.org.cn)
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