Khara-Khoto, also known as Heishuicheng or Heishui City, is an abandoned city in the Ejin Banner of Alxa League in western Inner Mongolia, China, near the Juyan Lake Basin. Built in 1032, the city thrived under the rule of the Tangut-led Western Xia dynasty. It has been identified as the city of Etzina, which appears in The Travels of Marco Polo, and Ejin Banner is named after this city.
The walls of Khara-Khoto
Image from Aurel Stein's visit. A tomb (possibly a mosque) at the southeast corner, viewed from the east.
Plan of Khara-Khoto, Aurel Stein expedition
The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (Chinese: 西夏; pinyin: Xī Xià; Wade–Giles: Hsi1 Hsia4), officially the Great Xia (大夏; Dà Xià; Ta4 Hsia4), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as Mi-nyak to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China that existed from 1038 to 1227. At its peak, the dynasty ruled over modern-day northwestern China, including parts of Ningxia, Gansu, eastern Qinghai, northern Shaanxi, northeastern Xinjiang, and southwest Inner Mongolia, and southernmost Outer Mongolia, measuring about 800,000 square kilometres (310,000 square miles).
Xixia stone inscriptions
Western Xia painting on silk depicting the Daoist deity Emperor Xuanwu, discovered in the Hongfo Pagoda in 1990
Painting of a warrior from a late Western Xia tomb in Gansu
Western Xia explosive caltrop