Chahar Province
Chahar Province is named after the Chahar, a tribal group of the Mongols who live in that area. Before the unification of the Mongol tribes under Genghis Khan, the area had seen intermittent Chinese influence over the native Mongols. After the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), the area was only intermittently controlled by China. The Chahar had become the personal appanage of the monarchs of the Northern Yuan dynasty since the reign of Batumongke Dayan Khan (r. 1479–1517). By the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), Chahar was not yet a Chinese province, but "Zhangyuan Special Region" (), although Yao Xiguang () proposed making Chahar a province as early as 1908.