Twin Pagodas at Baisikou, Buddhist pagodas in Helan County, Yinchuan, China

The Twin Pagodas at Baisikou are two brick towers standing 100 metres apart on a mountain terrace at the Baisikou pass in the Helan Mountains, about 50 km from old Yinchuan. The eastern pagoda is 39 m high with 13 storeys; the western is 36 m high with 14 storeys and a taller, more rounded profile. Both are octagonal, hollow-brick structures with wide eaves.

The pagodas' construction date is unrecorded; glazed fragments matching Western Xia royal-tomb styles and local chronicles place them alongside a Buddhist temple and the summer palace of Emperor Li Yuanhao. The surrounding temple was destroyed in the Jiajing era of the Ming. Repairs in 1986 found Yuan and Ming alterations, and carbon-14 dating of the central pillars confirmed late Western Xia work.

The name Baisikou comes from "Baisikou", meaning "mouth of a hundred temples", after the more than 100 monasteries once recorded here. The west pagoda's niches hold 96 shallow Buddhist shrines: standing monks on the third and fourth storeys, sixteen arhats on the fifth and sixth, guardian figures on the seventh and ninth, and offering bodhisattvas on the tenth and eleventh.

The pagodas stand on a slope terrace on the north side of the Baisikou pass, about 50 km from Yinchuan's old town, with mountains on three sides and 100 m between the two towers. The site is reached on foot over uneven ground, so sturdy shoes help. Grazing was banned on the Helan range in 2003 and villagers nearby were resettled, so facilities are minimal.

The west pagoda has 96 shallow niches set into its walls, each once holding a clay figure: arhats on the fifth and sixth storeys, guardian warriors on the seventh and ninth, bodhisattvas on the tenth and eleventh. A complete green-glazed roof-ridge beast sits on the tenth-storey balcony of its east face.