city, central Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, northern China. Baotou, a prefecture-level municipality, is situated on the north bank of the Huang He (Yellow River) on its great northern bend, about 100 miles (160 km) west of Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia.

Baotou is of comparatively recent origin. Although the region was colonized and garrisoned during the Tang dynasty (618–907), it was afterward occupied by Mongol tribes and as late as the 1730s was still a hamlet. As the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12) strengthened its grip on the Mongol border regions, Baotou gradually developed into a market town. It was walled around 1871 and in 1925 was given the status of an administrative county.

Baotou's modern growth began when a railway from Beijing reached the city in 1923. It then grew rapidly into a major commercial centre for trade with Mongolia and northwestern China, controlling a marketing area including most of what is now the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningxia (Ningsia), the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai (Tsinghai), and parts of present-day Mongolia. Exports were mostly hides, wool, and felt; chief imports were cloth, grain, drugs, and tea. The wool and hides collected by local merchant firms and by traders from Beijing and Tianjin were transported to Tianjin for export. The area along the northern loop of the Huang He had been colonized by Chinese settlers from the 1880s onward, and Baotou became the major commercial centre for this Chinese community. The city grew rapidly, and during the Japanese occupation (1937–45) Baotou was a centre of the autonomous government of Mengjiang. The Japanese began to develop light industry there and also discovered rich deposits of coal and other minerals nearby.

After 1949 Baotou was completely transformed. Its rail link with Beijing, destroyed in 1949 during China's civil warfare, was restored in 1953 and double tracked in the late 1950s. Another line was constructed that followed the Huang He southwest to Lanzhou in Gansu, where it connected with other rail links to central and south-central China and to Ürümqi in the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang in the northwest. In addition, Baotou became the site of a major integrated iron and steel complex that was based on the rich iron-ore deposits to the north at Bayan Obo (with which it has been linked by rail), on the coking coal from Shiguai in the east near the Daqing Mountains, and on local limestone. The complex was part of the move to relocate heavy-industry centres away from China's coastal regions. Although the complex was declared completed in 1961, it did not become fully operational until the late 1960s. The facility developed into one of China's major steel producers and later branched into rare-earth metallurgy.

Baotou's subsequent growth was phenomenal, in part because the municipal area was expanded to include the coal mines to the east and the iron and steel complex to the west. The city emerged as a major industrial base not merely for Inner Mongolia and northern China but also for the country as a whole. Industrial development has continued. A rail line, completed in 1989, connects Baotou to Shenmu in northern Shaanxi (Shensi) province and the large Dongsheng coalfield there. In addition, a high-technology industrial park was established in the city in 1992. Other manufactures include machinery, chemicals, and electronic equipment. Baotou has also become a major transportation hub, with rail connections to northwestern, north-central, and northeastern China and an express highway to Hohhot. Pop. (2002 est.) city, 1,166,634; (2007 est.) urban agglom., 2,036,000.