Western Xia Imperial Tombs

Burial Ground Of The Western Xia Emperors Below The Helan Mountains; UNESCO World Heritage Site (2025) · Yinchuan, Ningxia

A field of eroded earthen mounds on the gravel plain below the Helan Mountains outside Yinchuan, all that remains above ground of the Western Xia, an empire founded by the Tangut people that ruled the northwest for nearly two centuries until Genghis Khan destroyed it in 1227. Nine imperial tombs and some two hundred lesser graves are spread across forty square kilometres, each once a walled complex with gate towers, stele pavilions and a pagoda-like tumulus; fire and time stripped away the tiled roofs and left the cores standing as strange, fluted cones of rammed earth, often called the pyramids of the East. The Mongols erased the dynasty so thoroughly that its language and script were lost for centuries, and the site museum tells that story through carved stone beasts, glazed roof ornaments and reconstructed Tangut characters. At dawn and dusk the mounds throw long shadows against the mountains, and the emptiness of the plain is much of the effect. The tombs were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list on 11 July 2025, the first World Heritage site in Ningxia.

Western Xia Imperial Tombs, Xixia District, Yinchuan, Yinchuan, Ningxia, China

Daily about 8:00-17:00 in summer, with winter hours given variously as 8:00-16:30 or 9:00-17:00 (check); the museum keeps the same hours.

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