Banner (Inner Mongolia)

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This article is about a type of administrative division in Inner Mongolia, China.
For other meanings of the term "banner", see banner (disambiguation).
Banner
Chinese: 旗 (character)
qí (Pinyin romanization)
Mongolian: Хошуу (cyrillized)
khoshuu (romanized)
Manchurian: Gūsa (romanized)

A banner is an administrative division of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China.

Banners were first used during the Qing Dynasty, which organized the Mongols into banners except those who belonged to the Manchu Eight Banners. Each banner had sumun as nominal subdivisions, which also means arrow. In Inner Mongolia, several banners made up a league. In the rest, including Outer Mongolia, northern Xinjiang and Qinghai, Aimag (Аймаг) was the largest administrative division. While it restricted the Mongols from crossing banner borders, the dynasty protected Mongolia from population pressure from China proper.

Administrative divisions
of the People's Republic
of China
This article is part of the
Political divisions of China
series
Province level
Provinces
Autonomous regions
Municipalities
Special Administrative
Regions (SARs)
Prefecture level
Prefectures
Autonomous prefectures
Prefecture-level cities
Sub-provincial cities
Leagues
County level
Counties
Autonomous counties
County-level cities
Sub-prefecture-level cities
City districts
Banners
Autonomous banners
Township level
Townships (ethnic)
Sumu (ethnic)
Towns
Subdistricts
County districts
(defunct)

Today, banners are a county level division in the Chinese administrative hierarchy. There are 49 banners in total.

An autonomous banner is a special type of banner set up by the People's Republic of China. There are 3 autonomous banners, all of which are found in northeastern Inner Mongolia, each with a designated non-Han ethnic majority that is a national ethnic minority:

[edit] See also