| Lindong | |
| Native Name: | Chinese: 林东镇 • |
| Image Caption: | Liao Shangjing Museum |
| Pushpin Map: | Inner Mongolia |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Inner Mongolia |
| Coor Pinpoint: | Lindong town government |
| Coordinates: | 43.9681°N 119.3756°W |
| Settlement Type: | Town |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | People's Republic of China |
| Subdivision Type1: | Autonomous region |
| Subdivision Name1: | Inner Mongolia |
| Subdivision Type2: | Prefecture-level city |
| Subdivision Name2: | Chifeng |
| Subdivision Type3: | Banner |
| Subdivision Name3: | Bairin Left Banner |
| Population Total: | 68000 |
| Population Footnotes: | [1] |
| Population As Of: | 2018 |
| Population Density Km2: | auto |
| Timezone: | China Standard |
| Utc Offset: | +8 |
Lindong (Mongolian:)[2] is a town in the Balin Left Banner, Chifeng, within the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China.[3] [4] The town has an area of 881km2, and a population of 68,000, according to a 2020 publication by the Balin Left Banner government.[5] The town serves as the administrative seat of the Balin Left Banner.[6]
Lindong lies adjacent to Balin Left Banner's urban core. Large swathes of the town are forests and grasslands.
The town has a continental climate, experiencing an average of 3,000 hours of sunshine annually, 166.4mm to 366.4mm of precipitation annually, and 120 to 130 frost-free days annually.
Lindong is divided into 33 administrative villages .[7] The town also hosts 125 natural villages, which lack jurisdictional authority, and belong to the town's administrative villages. The towns administrative villages are as follows:
Lindong has approximately 18,000 households, hosting a population of about 68,000 people, giving the town an average household size of 3.78 people. The town's population represents 19% of Balin Left Banner's total.
According to the government of the Balin Left Banner, Lindong is a largely agricultural town. The largest industries in the town are vegetable farming, donkey husbandry, and broom production. The town has about 100 private enterprises, of which, 53 are identified by the banner government as small and medium enterprises.
The per capita annual disposable income of the town's farmers and herders in 2019 totaled 12,521 renminbi.
As of 2019, the town raised approximately 190,000 heads of livestock, and grew 3,000 mu of vegetables.
There are six wholesale markets in Lindong.
In order to promote economic growth, the banner government has launched a plan to expand agricultural facilities, construct a dam, and build a photovoltaic power plant within Lindong.
The town has a large tourism sector, as it is home to the ruins of, an ancient city which served as the capital of the Liao dynasty. The Liao Shangjing Museum in the town, just west of the ruins of Shangjing, showcase 113,885 cultural relics, including many representative of the Khitan culture, the ethnic group the Liao dynasty was run by.[8] The banner government also recognizes rural tourism as an important economic sector for Lindong.
National Highway 305 currently ends in the town, however, as of March 2020, the Banner government is working on a plan to extend it to the township of .[9] Multiple commercial bus providers service a route from Lindong to Beijing, which is approximately 780 kilometers in length.[10] [11]