Datong Travel Guide
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Datong City, located in the north of Shanxi Province about 240 kilometers due west of Beijing and some 20 kilometers south of the Great Wall, which follows, roughly, the border between present-day Shanxi Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is one of the famous historic and cultural cities of China. In ancient times, Datong was a military stronghold whose mission was to hold back the hordes that frequently pushed south into China proper, from Mongolia. Indeed, this was the very raison d'être of the Great Wall. Today, however, Datong, alongside its tourism-oriented role as an important Chinese historical venue, provides one of the country's primary sources of energy, as significant coal deposits have been found here, giving Datong the somewhat dubious title of China's "coal capital". Not surprisingly,... [ View Details ]
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more attractions Recommended Datong Attractions
Mt. Hengshan 
Mt. Hengshan, also variously called Ziyue, Hengzong or Changshan Mountain, lies some 60 kilometers south of the city of Datong, Shanxi Province. The mountain, whose highest peak reaches an altitude of... [ View Details ]
Hanging Monastery 
The Hanging Monastery at the foot of Heng Shan (Heng Mountain, aka Henshan Mountain), Shanxi Province, is located some 5 kilometers south of the village of Hunyuan, and about 65 kilometers southeast o... [ View Details ]
Shanhua Monastery
Shanhua Monastery is located in central Datong within the old city walls. It was first constructed during the Tang dynasty (618-907AD) though most of the present wooden building dates back to the 12th... [ View Details ]
Recommended Datong Tours
- Datong Yungang Grottoes Tour from Beijing from 515 USD
- Essence of Datong Tour from 621 USD
- Essence of Datong with Hanging Temple Tour from 402 USD
- Explore Datong from Beijing from 407 USD
- Datong Culture Tour from 877 USD
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- Tailor-made a Datong tour for me
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There are 2 comments:
"Ugly city, wonderful historical sites"
cbonnal said at 2011-3-27 8:44:00
Excellent
At first sight, Datong is a nightmare. Ugly architecture in a desertic province, you first wonder what am I doing here???. Then, you see the Yungang Caves, the Nine-dragons wall, Huayan monastery... and your travel to Datong becomes a dream. Yungang Caves is one of the places I've loved the most during my travels in China. When I went there, I had the same marveled feeling as when I visited Abu Simbel Temple in Egypt : highly preserved gorgeous historical relics, beautiful coloured buddhas statues... A World Heritage site worth seeing!
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great traveler said at 2009-1-21 19:25:00
Average
Very smoggy, in a huge coal area with around 10,000 coal mines, poor and dingy miners villages with the remains of ancient fortifications just dotted around, eg old beacon towers, or bits of old wall, built of rammed mud, crumbling now, all mixed up with modern city development.
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