Datong

Datong is a prefecture-level city in northern Shanxi Province in the People's Republic of China. It sits in the Datong Basin at an elevation of about 1,040 metres and borders Inner Mongolia to the north and west and Hebei to the east. The district was a frontier zone between settled Chinese farmland and the nomads of the steppe, known for its horse trade, and it passed through the Qin and Han dynasties as Pingcheng County. Under the Northern Wei dynasty Pingcheng served as the capital from AD 398 to 494, and the Yungang Grottoes were carved in the later part of that period. The old city walls survived in part to 1982, when Datong was listed as a National Famous Historical and Cultural City. The 2020 census counted 3,105,591 residents in the prefecture.