Nine mounds, and the graves around them
The eastern foothills of the southern Helan Mountains fall away onto a dry fan above Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Nine imperial mounds stand on that fan. Around them the necropolis holds 271 subordinate tombs, a northern architectural complex and thirty-two flood-control works. A site museum and a visitor area occupy the open ground below the slopes. These are the imperial tombs of the Xixia, or Western Xia, a Tangut state of the 11th to 13th centuries. The court buried its rulers in the pattern of a Chinese empire, and Buddhism was essential to that civilisation. The Tangut state stood among Han, Tubo, Uighur, Khitan and Jurchen neighbours. Tubo is the name for the Tibetan neighbours in that company. In 1227 the Mongol army of Genghis Khan destroyed the state. What remains readable on the fan is the burial ground itself: earthen imperial mounds, the smaller graves set around them, and the works built so floodwater would leave the dead alone.
Flood works inside a royal cemetery
Storm water leaves the Helan slopes and runs across the open fan. Thirty-two flood-control works stand inside the inscribed property, on the same ground as the nine mausoleums—a royal cemetery that is also desert engineering. Burial mounds and attendant graves share the fan with channels and berms meant to keep floodwater away. A northern architectural complex belongs with that group. The plan follows a Chinese imperial cemetery, taken up by a Tangut court whose Buddhist life was fitted to the forms of an empire. After 1227 the court was gone; the fan kept the mounds. Yinchuan Municipality is among the managers of the property. Territorial protection is shared by Xixia District and Yongning County where district and county meet the mountain. The line of mounds is a municipal necropolis with that shared local duty.
Entered on the list in 2025
UNESCO inscribed the property in 2025, dossier 1736, under criteria (ii) and (iii). The property area is 3,899 hectares. The buffer zone is 40,569.5 hectares. Decision 47 COM 8B.15 of the 47th session inscribed the tombs and adopted the statement of outstanding universal value. On 11 July 2025 the tombs entered the World Heritage List. The property has been a national priority protected site since 1988. The buffer is large because the mounds stand against a living capital: irrigated land, districts and roads on the plain below the fan. Custody belongs to the municipality, with Xixia District and Yongning County each holding a territorial share. The visible remainder is still those nine imperial graves on dry ground, counted together with the flood works inside one heritage boundary.