Etymology

Hohhot

H4O1H4H4O1T1

Today it means: The capital city of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, in north-central China. Full definition →

Mongolian Хөх хот
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Mongolian · derived fromХөх хот
  2. English todayHohhot

From Mongolian Хөх хот (Xöx xot), modern form of ᠬᠥᠬᠡᠬᠣᠲᠠ (kökeqota), from ᠬᠥᠬᠡ (köke, “dark blue; (hist.) green, grue”) + ᠬᠣᠲᠠ (qota, “town, city”), given to the settlement by Altan Khan in the 1580s. His previous palace and monastery established outside modern Baotou in 1572 bore the same name, although it is now frequently connected to the nearby Daqing Mountains instead, whose name is similarly ambiguous between blue and green.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.