The Inner Mongolia Film and TV Base, south of Hohhot on the steppe road toward the Wang Zhaojun Mausoleum, is a large outdoor film set that has been used for dozens of Chinese historical dramas set in the steppe, Tang dynasty, or Mongolian empire periods. The facility has been partly opened to tourism, allowing visitors to walk through the costume sets of various historical periods — Mongolian ger encampments, Tang dynasty palace facades, Qing military barracks — while film productions are not in progress.
The base is a peculiar kind of attraction — a film set pretending to be history — but it gives some insight into how the Mongolian steppe landscape is imagined and packaged for the enormous Chinese television drama industry. Some of the set pieces are surprisingly elaborate; the Mongolian camp section has full-size gers, horse corrals, and replica Mongolian armour. If there is an active production during your visit, watching Chinese actors in period costume gallop across the steppe in front of camera crews is an unexpectedly entertaining spectacle.