Tongxin is a county town in central Ningxia, midway between Yinchuan and Guyuan on the road south through the province. It is not on most itineraries, but it contains one of the oldest surviving mosques in China: the Tongxin Great Mosque, a Ming dynasty structure built in the late 14th century that has escaped the alterations and destructions that have befallen most historic Islamic architecture in the northwest.
The mosque is a rare example of a fully Chinese architectural vocabulary applied to Islamic worship — timber-framed halls, traditional tiled roofs, and courtyard layout, with no domes or minarets but instead the forms of a classical Chinese temple complex. The prayer hall interior, however, is unmistakably Islamic in its decoration, with Arabic calligraphy on the walls and a qibla niche oriented toward Mecca. The building survived the Cultural Revolution because the community concealed its religious function, reportedly representing it to authorities as a storehouse.
Tongxin county itself is one of the poorest areas in Ningxia, set in the dry loess hills that characterise central Ningxia. The town is predominantly Hui, with a conservative character. Beyond the mosque, there is little for the tourist, but the drive or bus ride south from Yinchuan through this terrain gives a good sense of the arid, terraced landscape that makes up so much of the province away from the river.
Buses to Tongxin run from Yinchuan and Guyuan; the journey from the capital takes about three hours. The town has basic accommodation for those who need it, but most visitors make it a stop en route rather than a destination in its own right.