Banners of Inner Mongolia in the context of "Counties of China"

Counties (县) are found in the third level of the administrative hierarchy in provinces and autonomous regions and the second level in municipalities and Hainan, a level that is known as "county level" and also contains autonomous counties, county-level cities, banners, autonomous banners and city districts. There are 1,355 counties in mainland China out of a total of 2,851 county-level divisions.

The term xian is sometimes translated as "district" or "prefecture" when put in the context of Chinese history.

Autonomous counties (Chinese: 自治县) and autonomous banners (Chinese: 自治旗) are county-level autonomous administrative divisions of China. Autonomous counties tend to have a large number of ethnic minority citizens compared to ordinary counties (if not an outright majority), or are the historic home of a significant minority population.

There are 117 autonomous counties and three autonomous banners. The latter are found in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the former are found everywhere else.

The Kumul Khanate was a semi-autonomous feudal Turco-Mongol khanate (equivalent to a banner in Mongolia) within the Qing dynasty and then the Republic of China until it was abolished by Xinjiang governor Jin Shuren in 1930. The khanate was located in present-day Hami prefecture of Xinjiang.