Bathahalak

Bathahalak lies in the Darhan Muminggan United Banner of Inner Mongolia, northeast of Baotou, on the dry eastern Gobi plateau. Its better-known name, Bailingmiao, comes from the monastery that made the place a landmark. Herders and caravans crossed open grassland and cold desert between wells, grazing grounds and the routes toward Hohhot and the Mongolian steppe.

The temple, whose Chinese name is Guangfu Temple, developed as a Gelug monastery. Its main assembly hall, colleges for sutra study, tantra, medicine and astronomy, stupas and Tibetan-style courtyards formed a religious complex. The Kangxi emperor granted the Guangfu Temple name, connecting the monastery to Qing patronage.

Bailing Temple also served the pastoral economy. Pilgrims brought offerings, merchants gathered for festivals, and monastic estates controlled grazing and grain. Mongol herders used horses, sheep and cattle across the surrounding plateau, moving with seasonal pasture and water. Bathahalak therefore grew as a sacred and commercial point in a thinly settled landscape, where a monastery gave shape to local time and movement.