Kangbashi district strives for green space for living and leisure

Kangbashi district of Ordos on the edge of the Mu Us desert in Inner Mongolia, has strived for green development over the years. It is transforming from a windy and dusty place to a beautiful and livable urban area featuring forests and gardens.

Sticking to the development concept of establishing an ecological urban region, Kangbashi continues to expand the urban space by making full use of its original mountains and rivers and yet avoiding damage to the ecological environment. It builds an urban style of low-rise, low-density urbanization with low volume ratio and high greening rate.

The colorful flowers at the Sun Plaza have attracted tourists and residents to watch the scenery during the day and enjoy the lights at night, said a local resident, who moved to a community near the plaza in 2014.

Planned to develop into a garden city, the district has built city parks for leisure, sports, rest, sightseeing, and culture.

Each park has a theme with cultural elements. The Ordos wedding culture park, for example, showcases the traditional Mongolian culture. It has 13 groups of sculptures and they show the unique characteristics of Ordos weddings. In May and June every year, 100,000 peonies in the park are in bloom.

In addition, since the beginning of the year, the district has opened nine public lawns in the downtown area, covering over 178,000 square meters. The green lands are favorite leisure and entertainment spots for local people.

"In the evening, adults and children come here to play. and the place comes to life. A walking path is also available nearby for cycling and running," said a local resident.

The district has also renovated the existing roads and built the walking path on Hubin Road. The walking path connects the main bridges in the urban area, and formed an urban green belt for strolling.

So far, Kangbashi boasts a forest area of 11,500 hectares and a body of water of 600 hectares, with the forest coverage rate and the vegetation coverage rate reaching 32.74 percent and 80 percent, respectively.

The total area of urban green space is 61.57 million square meters, and the built-up area of green space is 16.41 million square meters.

With a green coverage rate of 42.18 percent, the district has 49 greening streets, eight comprehensive parks, two special parks, five strip-shape parks, and 15 street-side green spaces. The per capita park green space area is nearly 88.74 square meters.

In addition, 21 communities in the district were rated as garden residential areas in Ordos, 15 unit courtyards were rated as garden units, and two parks were rated as key parks in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. The number of days with good air quality reaches over 310.