Discover Inner Mongolia
Great Mosque of Hohhot
呼和浩特清真大寺
A Qing-dynasty mosque built in Chinese temple form - timber halls, grey brick and a tiled roof - but with a hexagonal Chinese-style minaret, serving Hohhot's Hui Muslim community. It anchors the Huimin quarter, where the lamb and noodle food street Kuan Xiangzi starts.
The story
What makes this place special
The Great Mosque stands in Hohhot's Hui district and is a national key protected monument. It was first built in 1693, in the Kangxi era, as a handful of simple earth-walled rooms: Hui merchants travelling to trade in Hohhot during Galdan's rule in Xinjiang settled locally and built it. It was enlarged in 1789, the north and south lecture halls were rebuilt in 1869, and the gate and screen wall were added in the Guangxu era. Muslim subscription funded a thorough rebuilding between 1923 and 1925, which produced the present scale. The moon-watching tower was added in 1939, for sighting the moon to fix the start and end of Ramadan and for calling the faithful to prayer; the Chinese source gives its height inconsistently as about 36m in one place and 33m in another. The main structure is Chinese traditional architecture with Islamic decorative work, the prayer hall formed of five linked roof spans, and the mosque holds a thirty-volume handwritten Arabic Quran and seven stone stelae.
What you’ll discover
A Chinese temple-form building that turns out to be a mosque: grey brick, tiled roofs, a screen wall and courtyard, with Arabic inscription where you would expect Chinese couplets, and a tall brick minaret-like moon tower at the rear corner that is the landmark of the whole district. The prayer hall, which non-Muslims are generally not admitted to, sits under five linked roofs. Outside, the surrounding streets are the Hui quarter, with halal butchers, bakeries and noodle shops.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- This is a working mosque, not a monument. Dress modestly, do not enter the prayer hall unless invited, avoid Friday midday prayers and prayer times generally, and ask before photographing anyone.
- The architecture is the point: it is a Chinese building doing an Islamic job, down to the moon tower in brick in the style of a Chinese pavilion. Walk round the outside and look at how the screen wall and courtyard have been adapted.
- The streets around it are the best cheap eating in Hohhot: hand-pulled noodles, shaomai in the morning and roast lamb, in a quarter where the trade is local rather than touristic.
- Shaomai is Hohhot's breakfast dish and is eaten before about 10:00 in the shops around here, sold by weight by the steamer cage. Arriving at lunchtime and asking for it marks you as a visitor.
- It is about ten minutes' walk from Xilitu Zhao and Dazhao, so Hohhot's Buddhist and Islamic quarters link into one walk.
When to come
Mid-morning on a weekday, avoiding Friday prayers, with breakfast in the surrounding Hui streets first. May to September; the district is pleasant to walk in summer and bitter in winter.
Getting around
Reasonable at ground level. The courtyard and the exterior are flat and reachable from the street, so a wheelchair can see the building and the moon tower. The prayer hall is up steps and is in any case generally closed to non-Muslim visitors, and the moon tower is internal stairs only. A bad knee has no obstacle to the courtyard visit.
Worth knowing before you go
Dress modestly and ask before entering the prayer hall; the adjacent Kuan Xiangzi food street is the practical reason to time this around a meal.
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