Mongolian named it first, as “a place with deer”, and Chinese has since added two nicknames, the Steel City on the Grassland and the Rare Earth Capital. Both come from one mountain of iron ore to the north, which turned out to hold more than iron.
蒙古语最先给它起了名,”有鹿的地方”;汉语后来又添了两个外号,草原钢城和稀土之都。两个外号都出自北边的一座铁矿山,里面装的不只是铁。
Mud Ramparts, Iron Rails
土城墙与铁轨
The name is a homophone of the Mongolian Baketu, meaning “a place with deer”, according to Xinhua. For centuries it was a river port. In 1850 the Yellow River wharf moved to Nanhaizi and made the town the freight hub of the north-west, and when the Beijing–Suiyuan railway arrived in 1923 the population passed 70,000, according to Jiemian.
据新华社介绍,这个名字音近蒙古语”包克图”,意思是”有鹿的地方”。几百年里它是个河港。据界面新闻介绍,一八五零年黄河码头迁到南海子,使它成了西北的货运枢纽;一九二三年京绥铁路通到包头,人口超过七万。
Owen Lattimore, whose The Desert Road to Turkestan appeared in 1928, described a small trading town huddled inside mud ramparts far too big for it, with two busy streets for the merchants. The ore that would make Baotou was found at Bayan Obo in 1927, and the rare earths in it went unnoticed until 1934, according to the Baotou government. Really? The metals the world now wants most spent seven years inside a mine everyone already knew.
拉铁摩尔的《通往突厥斯坦的沙漠之路》出版于一九二八年,他笔下的包头是个小小的商镇,缩在一圈大得不成比例的土城墙里,只有两条热闹的街供商人做买卖。据包头市人民政府介绍,后来造就包头的矿石一九二七年在白云鄂博发现,矿里的稀土直到一九三四年才被人注意到。真的吗?如今全世界最想要的金属,在一座人人皆知的矿里待了七年。
Steel and Rails
钢与铁路
Baogang, the Baotou Iron and Steel works, was one of the raw-materials projects among the 156 Soviet-aided projects of the first Five-Year Plan, alongside Angang and Wugang, and the Baotou No. 1 Machinery Plant, which made tanks, was another, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. Technicians and workers from Anshan helped build Baogang, according to Jiemian.
据国家发展改革委介绍,包头钢铁厂是”一五”期间一百五十六项苏联援建项目中的原材料项目之一,与鞍钢、武钢并列,生产坦克的包头一机也是其中之一。据界面新闻介绍,鞍钢的技术人员和工人参与了包钢的建设。
Baotou was Inner Mongolia’s biggest economy for years and is now the runner-up. In 2025 GDP was ¥471.19 billion, behind Ordos at ¥612.22 billion and ahead of Hohhot at ¥427.83 billion, though its 5.4 percent real growth was the fastest of any city in the region, according to NetEase’s roundup of the regional statistics. Within that, steel value added fell 2.4 percent while rare-earth value added rose 27.4 percent, according to the 2025 communiqué. The city had 2.774 million residents, 11,900 births and 23,000 deaths, according to the same source.
包头多年是内蒙古最大的经济体,如今屈居第二。据网易整理的各地统计数据介绍,二零二五年地区生产总值四千七百一十一点九亿元,低于鄂尔多斯的六千一百二十二点二亿元,高于呼和浩特的四千二百七十八点三亿元,不过按不变价计算增长百分之五点四,是全区各市中最快的。据二零二五年统计公报,其中钢铁行业增加值下降百分之二点四,稀土行业增加值增长百分之二十七点四。据同一来源介绍,全市常住人口二百七十七点四万人,出生一万一千九百人,死亡二万三千人。
The rails have moved on too. The Beijing–Baotou high-speed service, using the Beijing–Zhangjiakou and Zhangjiakou–Hohhot lines, was announced in December 2019 as taking under four hours, according to China Daily. Since 23 December 2025 the Baotou–Yinchuan line has carried trains, the fastest reaching Yinchuan in 2 hours 38 minutes, according to China Daily.
铁路也换了模样。据中国日报介绍,北京至包头的高铁经京张城际铁路和张呼铁路,二零一九年十二月宣布全程不到四个小时。据中国日报介绍,二零二五年十二月二十三日包银高铁开通,包头至银川最快两小时三十八分。
The Mine and the Lake
矿山与湖
Bayan Obo’s rare-earth reserves are about 100 million tonnes, first in the world, across a district of 248 square kilometres, according to the Baotou government. A brokerage estimate puts the deposit at 83.7 percent of China’s reserves and 37.8 percent of the world’s, according to Huafu Securities as quoted by Jiemian.
据包头市人民政府介绍,白云鄂博稀土储量约一亿吨,居世界第一,矿区面积二百四十八平方公里。据界面新闻引述华福证券的估算,该矿占全国储量的百分之八十三点七、全球的百分之三十七点八。
The waste had to go somewhere. The Weikuang tailings lake was built in the 1950s without the waterproof liner that became standard in the West in the 1970s, and dust from it carries lead, cadmium and traces of radioactive thorium, according to The New York Times in July 2025. The same report cites a 2009 warning from the Baotou radiation office and a 2017 paper finding rare earths in children’s urine.
废料总得有个去处。据《纽约时报》二零二五年七月的报道介绍,尾矿库建于二十世纪五十年代,没有西方七十年代起成为标准的防渗衬层,库区扬起的粉尘含铅、镉和微量放射性钍。同一报道引述了包头辐射环境管理部门二零零九年的警告,以及二零一七年一篇在儿童尿液中检出稀土的论文。
According to the same New York Times reporter, who first visited in 2010 and returned in June 2025, the lake covers about four square miles and now sits behind a berm reinforced with stones and a concrete-walled moat, a nearby residential community has been moved away, and no sludge is visibly being carried off.
据《纽约时报》这位记者介绍,他二零一零年首次到访,二零二五年六月再度前往;尾矿湖面积约四平方英里,现在被用石块加固的堤坝和混凝土壁壕沟围着,附近的一个居民区已经搬走,未见有人清运尾矿泥浆。
