Xincheng ("New City") is the modern expansion of Hohhot to the north and east — glass towers, wide boulevards, a new convention centre, and the relocated offices of regional government departments. It is not interesting to visit for its own sake, but it provides a vivid contrast to the old town to the south: where Dazhao and the surrounding streets are dense, human-scaled, and historically layered, Xincheng is spacious, monumental, and almost aggressively new.
The district is where most of Hohhot's five-star hotels are located, and its restaurant scene tends toward the formal and expensive. The Inner Mongolia Museum is in this direction, accessible by metro. Walking between Xincheng and the old town in a single afternoon — something that takes about forty minutes — gives a compressed summary of how Chinese cities are simultaneously managing their historical heritage and racing toward a different kind of modernity.