Huangqihai, a lake in Chahar Right Front Banner, Inner Mongolia, was nearly dry in 2006, and its water area has grown since a restoration program began in 2021. Xinhua says the area reached 78.25 square kilometers by the end of 2025, and that President Xi Jinping visited on the 16th and stressed wetland protection.
According to Xinhua, Huangqihai lies in Chahar Right Front Banner, Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, an enclosed inland lake fed by 11 rivers. In the 1950s it covered about 130 square kilometers and had rich fisheries, but human activity and drought shrank it until it was nearly bare in 2006. When water returned in 2012, the surface was still under 5 square kilometers in the dry season and about 25 in the wet season.
광고 문의 · 300×250Chinese media including the Global Times said Xi Jinping received a briefing at the reserve on the 16th, inspected the shoreline and bird habitats, and stressed that wetland protection depends on preserving the original ecology. The outlets likened wetlands to the ‘kidneys of the earth’. This paper could not directly confirm his remarks and relies on Chinese media reports.
44 projects and the figures
Xinhua said the banner has carried out 44 projects since 2021, covering river dredging, ecological restoration, farm-pollution control, sewage and waste treatment, and protection facilities. Inflow channels were cleared to cut sediment, 10 waste transfer stations and 5 plastic-film recycling stations were built, and two villages in the reserve plus 49 nearby villages now have daily waste collection, with household toilet renovation completed.
The reported results include a water area that has grown steadily since 2022 to 78.25 square kilometers at the end of 2025, and the first detection of fish activity in 27 years in May 2025, read as a sign that self-purification and ecological cycling are returning. 168 bird species have been recorded. All of these figures come from Chinese state media, and no independent verification has been found. Xinhua described the lake as a ‘pearl beyond the frontier’ regaining its former brilliance.