Xinhua Square is the civic heart of modern Hohhot — a large public plaza surrounded by government buildings, the main commercial streets, and the department stores that supply the city's working population. It is not beautiful, but it is functional and animated, and the surrounding pedestrian streets have the full range of Chinese urban commerce: phone repair, bubble tea, cheap clothes, and the occasional good restaurant. The square itself fills on weekend evenings with families, food carts, and children on rental scooters.
The area around Xinhua Square is also where most of Hohhot's main hotels are concentrated, making it the practical base for most visitors. The streets running south from the square toward the old town gradually change character — from modern commercial to older residential to the temple quarter — in a walk of about twenty minutes that covers much of Hohhot's urban history.