Siziwang Banner is a
banner (county equivalent) in
Inner MongoliaInner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
,
ChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, which is located about 80 km (49.7 mi) north of
HohhotHohhot , is a city in north-central China and the capital of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, serving as the region's administrative, economic, and cultural centre....
, the capital of Inner Mongolia.
Administration
The county seat is
WulanhuaWulanhua is the county seat of the Siziwang Banner in Inner Mongolia. The town is often incorrectly referred to as Siziwang, but Wulanhua is the correct name, Siziwang being the name of county it is in...
Town, which has a population of about 200,000. Administratively, Siziwang is within the jurisdiction of
Ulaan ChabUlaan Chab is a region administered as a prefecture-level city in south-central Inner Mongolia, North China. Its administrative centre is in Jining District, which was formerly a county-level city. It was established as a prefecture-level city on 1 December 2003, formed from the former Ulanqab...
prefecture-level cityA prefectural level city , prefectural city or prefectural level municipality is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China, ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. Prefectural level cities form the second level of the administrative...
.
History
Siziwang literally means "four princes". The name comes from four Mongol brothers, Sengge (僧格), Suonuobu (索諾布), Emubu (鄂木布) and Yi'erzhamu (伊爾扎木), who were descendants of Hasar, a brother of
Genghis KhanGenghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
. They led their tribe in participating in the
ManchuThe Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
Qing DynastyThe Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
's conquest of
MingThe Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
ChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
in the early 17th century. In recognition of their service, the Qing court made Emubu the Duoluo Commandery Prince (多羅郡王) in 1649 and settled their tribe in the area of modern Siziwang Banner. The title was hereditary and passed through fourteen of his descendants before
communist ChinaThe Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
abolished all hereditary titles in Inner Mongolia in 1949. The last prince, Sudanamuchaogeji (蘇達那木朝格吉), died as a private citizen in 1957. There is a sculpture of the four original princes in Wulanhua, erected in 2003.
Spacecraft landing site
About 60 km (37.3 mi) north of Wulanhua is pasture land called Amugulang in Honggor sum. This is the primary landing site for manned
Shenzhou spacecraftShenzhou is a spacecraft developed and operated by the People's Republic of China to support its manned spaceflight program. The name is variously translated as "Divine Craft," "Divine Vessel of God," "Magic Boat" or similar and is also homophonous with an ancient name for China...
. A specially constructed 64.69 km (40.2 mi) road runs from Wulanhua to Honggor. It was built to support the recovery of the Shenzhou spacecraft. This road shortened the journey between the two towns from two hours to just 40 minutes.
Chinese space program recovery team (with SUV and recovery trucks) will track the progress of re-entry near the landing site and arrive shortly after landing.
A small recovery truck with a crane will lift the capsule and place on the rear to transport it back to the space centre.
Footnotes
- — All of the names presented here are transcribed from Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
sources using Hanyu Pinyin into the Roman alphabet. However, as these names are MongolianThe Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
and/or ManchuManchu is a Tungusic endangered language spoken in Northeast China; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus...
in origin, it would be much more accurate to transcribe them directly from those languages. These transcriptions are, however, unavailable as of now.