Tekes: The Bagua (Eight-Trigram) City Laid Out as a Mandala
Tekes is one of the strangest towns in Xinjiang — and one of the few you can grasp from the air but not the ground. Laid out in the 1930s as a bagua (eight-trigram) mandala, it’s a set of concentric rings crossed by eight radial roads aligned to the compass points, with no traffic lights because the geometry keeps things moving. From above it’s a perfect circle of trigrams; from inside it’s just a quiet Ili county with a famous plan. The story is better than the sight, but the story is good.
Last updated: July 15, 2026 · Written by Karl Huang, a Xinjiang travel specialist who has spent time across the region. Practical details are cross-checked against official tourism, transport, and border-regulation sources.
It sits south of Yining, a natural add-on to an Ili loop.
The Design
The bagua layout follows traditional Chinese cosmic geometry — a central park (the taiji dot), concentric ring roads, and eight spokes for the trigrams. The intent was harmonic and defensive (easy to read, hard to besiege). Today it’s a curiosity: a town you navigate by ring and spoke, where ‘take the third ring, second right’ actually means something. The central monument marks the center; climb it for the only true sense of the plan.
What to See
The center monument and its mural explain the layout; the surrounding rings are ordinary town. Nearby, the Tekes River and the grasslands beyond offer easy nature. The town is also a gateway to the southern Ili sights (Kuerdening is not far). It’s more ‘interesting concept’ than ‘must-see sight’ — worth an hour, not a day, unless you’re a design nerd.
How to Visit
Tekes is ~2 hours from Yining by road. Combine it with a Kuerdening day or as a stop on a southern-Ili drive. Lodging is basic; the draw is the idea, not the amenities. Go for the photograph from the central tower and the novelty of a town you can’t get lost in (the rings always lead back). It’s the region’s quirkiest stop — proof that Xinjiang’s maps hold more than mountains.
Why Bother
Most travelers skip Tekes, and that’s fair — it’s a concept more than a destination. But for the traveler who likes the odd and the planned, a bagua city in the Ili foothills is a genuine ‘only in Xinjiang’ footnote. Stop, climb the center, see the circle, and move on to the grassland that matters more.
The Bagua Layout
Laid out in the 1930s, Tekes follows traditional Chinese cosmic geometry: a central park (the taiji dot), concentric ring roads, and eight radial spokes for the trigrams. The intent was harmonic and defensive – easy to read, hard to besiege. Today you navigate by ring and spoke (‘take the third ring, second right’ actually means something), and the central monument marks the center; climb it for the only true sense of the plan from above.
What to See Nearby
The center monument and its mural explain the layout; the surrounding rings are an ordinary town. But Tekes is a gateway to southern Ili sights – Kuerdening’s forest-grassland is not far, and the broader Ili region holds Nalati Grassland and Sayram Lake for longer loops. It’s more ‘interesting concept’ than ‘must-see sight’, worth an hour unless you’re a design nerd.
How to Visit
Tekes is about two hours from Yining by road. Combine it with a Kuerdening day or as a stop on a southern-Ili drive; lodging is basic. Go for the photograph from the central tower and the novelty of a town you can’t get lost in – the rings always lead back. It’s the region’s quirkiest stop, proof that Xinjiang’s maps hold more than mountains.
