Shuozhou

Shuozhou is a prefecture-level city in the north of Shanxi province, China, on the upper reaches of the Fen River and bordering Inner Mongolia to the northwest. The prefecture covers about 10,662 square kilometres and held roughly 1.71 million people in 2010, and its government sits in Shuocheng District, the urban core. The site began as the ancient frontier town of Mayi, a trading post between the Han Chinese and the Xiongnu nomads of the eastern steppe, and later the seat of Dai Prefecture. Coal and other ores such as iron, bauxite, mica, manganese and graphite underpin its industry, and the wooden Yingxian Tower, built in 1056 under the Liao dynasty, is its best known monument. It has a cold, dry, semi-arid continental climate with most of its rain falling between June and September.