ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the history of Mongolian migration, interaction, and integration with Han Chinese and it examines patterns of urbanization and settlement. The chapter provides a better understanding of Mongolian identity and current issues of ethnicity in China's Inner Mongolian region. The dramatic increase in the size of the Mongolian population is due largely to natural increase, in-migration, and identity change. The cultivation of Mongolian pastureland not only changed the local ethnic population structure and direction of demographic movement but also changed the old social and cultural traditions. The policy of opening up pastureland completely shattered the old structure of the Mongolian population and its distribution, and Mongols became a minority on their own land. The rate of urbanization is a feature not just of a rural-urban drift but it is also a reflection of policies that are designed to heighten or minimize Mongolian identity and political activity.
