Meanings
alternative Pao-t'ou · alternative Paotow
- A prefecture-level city, the largest city in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, in northern China.
Alley and I were not going to Turkestan. We were on a four-hundred-and-fifty-mile trip to Paotou (pronounced Bao Toe), which used to be the frontier end of the line and is now autonomous Inner Mongolia’s largest city.
[1962, Edgar Snow, “Paotou Retrospect”, in Red China Today: The Other Side of the River, Penguin Books, published 1970, →OCLC, page 722 more examples
Moving west from Paotowchen there is only one highway, which many camel trains from Kansu follow in winter, but which is almost deserted in summer when the Yellow River is ice free. This road leads through Santaoho, a Roman Catholic Mission village near the elbow of the river, through Shihtsuishan, where there is a carefully guarded pass and a large garrison, and on into the populous Ninghsia district of Kansu, altogether an eighteen day journey of about 1,300 11 through thinly settled country in which a pestilence would travel with difficulty and in which it could have been most effectually checked at any of half a dozen points.
[1918 April, Rodney Gilbert, “Pneumonic Plague in China”, in Asia, volume XVIII, number 4, American Asiatic Association, page 344, columns 2, 3Dirty, toxic, radioactive: Working in the mining sector One of the most extreme examples is Baotou, a Chinese city in Inner Mongolia, where rare earth mining poisoned surrounding farms and nearby villages, causing thousands of people to leave the area.
2021 April 13, Michel Penke, “Toxic and radioactive: The damage from mining rare elements”, in DW News, archived from the original on 13 Apr 2021, CRITICAL RAW MATERIALS
Origin
- Mongolianᠪᠤᠭᠤᠲᠤ“haunt of deer”
- Mandarin包頭 /包头
- EnglishBaotou
From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 包頭 /包头 (Bāotóu), from Mongolian ᠪᠤᠭᠤᠲᠤ (buɣutu, “haunt of deer”), from ᠪᠤᠭᠤ (buɣu, “deer”) / буга (buga) + -ᠲᠤ (-tu, “with…”) / -т (-t, “ornative case suffix”).
More words from Mandarin, Mongolian
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Arabic بَاوْتُو
- بَاوْتُو (bawtū)a prefecture-level city in northern China
Chinese Cantonese 包頭 /包头
- 包頭 /包头 (baau¹ tau⁴)a prefecture-level city in northern China
Chinese Mandarin 包頭 /包头
- 包頭 /包头 (Bāotóu)a prefecture-level city in northern China
Hungarian Paotou
- Paotoua prefecture-level city in northern China
Japanese 包頭, パオトウ
- 包頭 (Hōtō)a prefecture-level city in northern China
- パオトウ (Paotō)a prefecture-level city in northern China
Korean 바오터우
- 바오터우 (Baoteou)a prefecture-level city in northern China
Russian Баото́у
- Баото́у (Baotóu)a prefecture-level city in northern China
Spanish Baotou
- Baotoua prefecture-level city in northern China
Vietnamese Bao Đầu
- Bao Đầua prefecture-level city in northern China
Cite this entry
Baotou. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Baotou
“Baotou.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Baotou. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Baotou,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Baotou.
Source: Baotou on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.