Sunday, January 21, 2018

Xilinguole Grasslands, Inner Mongolia, China

At first, the thought of finding a suitable match of a stamp and the letter X may seem a bit intimidating and discouraging and you think to yourself, "I will probably opt out of this week's edition".
And then the small electric bulb hits your head and the word "China" crosses your mind! Bingo! It reminds you that there are all these Chinese places and names that when transcribed into English, the magical letter X is right there at the beginning!
So first thing solved, now the question is, do I actually have such a stamp? After a short while, the answer appears on this envelope below, so yes I do! And seems I will be taking part in this Sunday Stamps edition after all! Truth to be told, the rule is that letter X could appear anywhere in the name, but you know, the perfectionist in me just wasn't content with posting something Mexican or related to boxing or so...

So anyways, the important stamp to look at here is the green one in the middle.



It was issued on 24th July, 1998 as a souvenir sheet and portrays the Xilinguole Grassland, one of the world's largest grasslands, located in the central area of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Covering a total area of 10,786 square kilometers, the Xilinguole National Nature Reserve was established in 1985 and is the first grassland nature reserve in China. UNESCO placed it on its list of International Biosphere Reserves in 1987.

Its name means "river on hilly lands" in Mongolian.

For more entries on the intriguing letter X, visit today's Sunday Stamps edition!


7 comments:

  1. Love the winding river and deep green. Beautiful. China and their X names never crossed my mind and I think I may even have an earlier stamp of farmers on the grassland. Clever you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A wonderful stamp, and greasy tie in to X.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great, not greasy! Silly auto correct.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice :)
    there are more words and names that begin with an X in China that I thought.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi! I am philatelist from Fujian, China. I would like to send you some letters, too. Could you tell me your address (by E-mail: jqdp0591@gmail.com) ? Thanks a lot. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. The grassland stamp is truly magnificent - glad you found this 'X'

    ReplyDelete
  7. prekrasna je ta zelenka! a evo i podsjeti me ti sad na sunday stamps :)

    ReplyDelete