Aohan Banner 敖汉旗

History and archaeology

"Aohan" is Mongolian for "eldest" or "great king", and the banner was created in 1636, the first year of the Qing Chongde reign. More than 4,000 ancient sites and tombs have been found here, a figure the banner government ranks first in China, and four prehistoric cultures were first identified and named after places in Aohan: Xiaohexi (小河西), Xinglongwa, Zhaobaogou (赵宝沟) and Xiaoheyan (小河沿). The archaeologist Su Bingqi (苏秉琦) called Aohan "the place where the sun of civilisation rose".

The banner has eight major national heritage sites, among them the Xinglongwa settlement, the Chengzishan hill-fort (城子山山城遗址), Dadianzi (大甸子遗址), Zhaobaogou and a stretch of the Warring States Yan Great Wall. Xinglongwa is known as "the first village of China"; its jade jue (slit rings) are described as the world's earliest jades and its stone dragon as China's earliest physical dragon. At Xinglonggou (兴隆沟) excavators found a complete Hongshan culture clay figure, hailed as the "ancestor god of China", along with carbonised millet more than 8,000 years old. The banner museum holds over 5,000 pieces, which the banner government says is the largest collection of any county-level museum in China.

Setting and landscape

The banner covers 8,300 square kilometres and sits 130 kilometres from the port of Jinzhou (锦州), the closest any Inner Mongolian county comes to the sea. With an average of 380 millimetres of rain a year, decades of tree and grass planting have raised forest cover to 44.17 percent, and in 2002 the UN Environment Programme placed Aohan on its Global 500 Roll of Honour. The Beijing–Tongliao, Chifeng–Jinzhou and Baxin (巴新) railways and the Chifeng–Tongliao and Chifeng–Chaoyang expressways cross the banner.

Food and local products

Aohan's dryland farming system was listed as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in 2012. About one million mu (roughly 67,000 hectares) is sown with foxtail millet each year, and the banner calls itself the "world's hometown of millet". Aohan millet, buckwheat flour, sorghum and sweet potatoes are among its geographical-indication products, and Aohan fine-wool sheep received a commendation signed by Premier Zhou Enlai in 1958.

Highlights

• Xinglongwa settlement site 兴隆洼遗址: 8,000-year-old village called 'the first village of China'; major national heritage site.
• Xinglonggou site 兴隆沟遗址: Source of a complete Hongshan clay figure and 8,000-year-old carbonised millet.
• Aohan millet 敖汉小米: Geographical-indication product from a dryland farming system recognised by the FAO in 2012.