Shitanjing, a former coal town in Shizuishan’s Dawukou District, once held about 130,000 people, by Xinhua’s count, and has just over 200 permanent residents now, yet nearly 60 films and series had been shot there by August 2026.
石炭井是石嘴山大武口区的一座昔日煤城,据新华社统计,鼎盛时有约十三万人,现在常住人口只有二百多人,而到二零二六年八月,已有近六十部影视作品在这里拍摄。
The wider city of Shizuishan, in northern Ningxia, spent six decades digging coal before it began closing the mines.
石嘴山则是宁夏北部的一座地级市,经历了六十年的煤炭开采,才开始陆续关闭矿井。
Stone Mouth on the River
河边的石嘴子
The name comes from a boulder on the Yellow River bank that a Ming gazetteer describes as jutting out like a mouth, according to Sohu’s Ningxia place-names series. Early in the Qing there were Mongol-Han horse markets here, and a saying held that only Shizuishan had the most contact with Mongolia, and by the Guangxu era it was a commercial port on the northern Yellow River, according to the same source.
据搜狐”神奇宁夏”系列介绍,这个名字来自黄河岸边一块明代地方志形容为”凸出如嘴”的巨石。同一来源介绍,清初这里有蒙汉马市,有”惟石嘴通蒙古最多”的说法,到光绪年间已是黄河北段的商业码头。
In the modern north-west, sheepskin rafts and camel caravans carried the trade, the rafts moving most bulk goods such as wool down the river and the caravans crossing the Alashan and Ordos grasslands when the river froze for three or four months, according to a paper on north-west trade. The same paper lists Shizuizi, as it was then written, among the Ningxia towns that grew through river transport.
据一篇关于近代西北贸易的论文介绍,近代西北的贸易靠羊皮筏和驼队,筏子顺河运走羊毛等大宗货物,河面封冻三四个月时,驼队穿过阿拉善和鄂尔多斯的草原。同一篇论文把当时写作”石嘴子”的这个地方,列为宁夏因河运而兴起的城镇之一。
Coal and After
煤与煤之后
The city came from coal. Shizuishan was named one of ten new coal mining areas under the first Five-Year Plan in 1955, its first mine produced in August 1958, and about 89,000 construction workers moved in between 1958 and 1960, according to Sohu’s series.
这座城市是煤炭造出来的。据搜狐系列介绍,石嘴山一九五五年被列为”一五”期间十个新建煤矿区之一,第一座矿井一九五八年八月投产,一九五八至一九六零年净迁入施工人员约八点九万人。
The cost showed in the mountains. Unregulated mining badly damaged the Helan Mountains, and coal-washing plants and storage yards polluted air and groundwater, according to China Daily. A central environmental inspection in 2016 urged restoration, and since 2017 39 coal mines and 61 other sites have closed and 146 square kilometres of damaged land have been restored, according to the same source. Coal output fell from 15.58 million tonnes citywide in 2007 to about 1.05 million, and the non-coal share of industry rose from about 15 percent to roughly 88 percent by 2023, according to Xinhua.
代价留在了山上。据中国日报介绍,无序开采严重破坏了贺兰山,洗煤厂和储煤场造成空气和地下水污染。同一来源介绍,二零一六年中央环保督察要求整治,二零一七年以来关闭煤矿三十九座、其他点位六十一处,修复受损土地一百四十六平方公里。据新华社介绍,全市原煤产量从二零零七年的一千五百五十八万吨降到约一百零五万吨,非煤产业占工业的比重从约百分之十五升到二零二三年的约百分之八十八。
The economy is growing while the city shrinks. In 2025 GDP was ¥57.984 billion, up 5.0 percent in real terms, and the resident population of the whole city was 735,800, down 3,600, according to the 2025 communiqué. Good-air days made up 84.4 percent of the year, a figure that excludes exceptional sandstorm weather, with average PM2.5 at 30.0 micrograms per cubic metre, according to the same source.
经济在增长,城市在缩小。据二零二五年统计公报,二零二五年地区生产总值五百七十九点八四亿元,按不变价计算增长百分之五点零,全市年末常住人口七十三万五千八百人,减少三千六百人。据同一来源介绍,空气质量优良天数占百分之八十四点四,该数字不含特殊沙尘天气,PM2.5年均浓度每立方米三十点零微克。
Lake, Lines and Film Town
湖、铁路与影视小镇
The water has been repaired too. In 2016 Shahu’s water was graded worse than Class V, according to Xinhua. Restoration since then dredged 1.5 million cubic metres of sediment, built a 13.2-kilometre anti-seepage ditch and added 6,000 mu of constructed wetland, lifting the lake to Classes III–IV, and Xinghai Lake has been turned from a flood-control reservoir into a natural wetland since 2020, according to the same source. Really? A lake graded below the worst category now sits two grades better. Tourism reached 10.0724 million domestic trips in 2025, with revenue of ¥5.139 billion, according to the 2025 communiqué.
水也修复了。据新华社介绍,二零一六年沙湖水质为劣五类。据同一来源介绍,此后的治理清淤一百五十万立方米,修建十三点二公里防渗沟,新建人工湿地六千亩,水质提升到三至四类;星海湖自二零二零年起由防洪水库改造成自然湿地。真的吗?一个低于最差等级的湖,如今已好了两个级别。据二零二五年统计公报,二零二五年国内游客一千零七万二千四百人次,旅游收入五十一点三九亿元。
The railway is new. The Baotou–Yinchuan high-speed line, with the Huinong–Yinchuan section opened on 1 October 2024 and the full line on 23 December 2025, cut Baotou to Yinchuan to under three hours, according to Xinhua.
铁路是新的。据新华社介绍,包银高铁惠银段二零二四年十月一日开通,全线二零二五年十二月二十三日开通,包头到银川三小时内可达。
According to Xinhua, the red-brick factory buildings of Shitanjing, at the foot of the Helan Mountains, date from the 1960s to the 1990s and spread across about 7.6 square kilometres. Visitors walk the old mining town’s streets with hand-drawn maps, matching film stills to real street corners.
据新华社介绍,贺兰山脚下的石炭井,红砖厂房建于二十世纪六十年代至九十年代,分布范围约七点六平方公里。游客拿着手绘地图走过这座老矿区小镇的街巷,将电影剧照与眼前真实的街角一一对照。
