NINGSIA, DIOCESIS of. – It is situated in the southwestern part of Inner Mongolia (China) and comprises the three civil subprefectures located west of Suiyuan Province, the whole of N. Province, part of the five subprefectures of Northern Shansi beyond the Great Wall, and four Mongolian principalities. The seat of the Ordinary is Sanshengkiang.
This territory, erected as an apostolic vicariate on 14 March 1922 by division from that of Southwestern Mongolia, was elevated to a suffragan diocese of Suiyuan on 11 April 1946. On 8 January 1948, the portion of territory belonging to the civil subprefecture of Paotow was detached from it and incorporated into the neighboring archdiocese of Suiyuan. Over an area of 200,000 sq. km., the population is 1 million inhabitants. Catholics number 31,827, with 3,622 catechumens.
In 1864 the Holy See assigned as a field of apostolate to the missionaries of the Congregation of the Heart of Mary the region situated north of the Great Wall of China, geographically known as Inner Mongolia, which today comprises the provinces of Jehol, Chager, Suiyuan, and N. The first missionaries of Scheut, led by their founder, Fr. Verbist, arrived in Mongolia on 6 December 1875. At that time the Christians of Mongolia numbered only a few thousand; but by 1883 they had increased to 14,000. In 1900, the Boxer movement caused the almost complete destruction of all the educational and charitable works that had been laboriously organized. During the Second World War, only the territory of N. in Mongolia escaped Japanese occupation. There are 33 native priests and 17 foreign missionaries; 11 major seminarians and 25 minor seminarians; 78 native nuns, and a school population of 3,444.