Datong Coal Mine Exhibition Hall

Datong Coal Mine Exhibition Hall

The Datong Coal Mine Exhibition Hall is a national AA-level tourist attraction.

The "Ten Thousand People Pit" is an alternative name for the Datong Coal Mine Exhibition Hall, derived from its two caves that house the remains of miners killed during the Japanese invasion of China.

The "Ten Thousand People Pit" became a site where the bodies of tortured miners were piled up after Japanese invaders occupied the Datong Coal Mine in October 1937 and brutally implemented a bloody policy of "exchanging people for coal"

During the eight years of Japanese occupation of the Datong Coal Mine, over 14 million tons of coal were plundered, and more than 60,000 miners were tortured to death. There were as many as 20

"Ten Thousand People Pits" in the Datong coal mining area alone, of which only two remain today.

This is ironclad evidence of the Japanese military's atrocities against Chinese miners and of Japan’s crimes during its invasion of China. The current site of the Datong Coal Mine "Ten Thousand People Pit" has been designated as a national defense and patriotic education base, serving as a constant reminder

for people never to forget national humiliation.

Located in the Nangou area of Meiyukou in Datong’s mining district, it consists of an upper and a lower cave. The upper cave is over five meters wide and more than forty meters deep, and is a natural cave. The lower cave is about four meters wide and over seventy meters deep, originally a tunnel from an old small coal mine. Both caves are filled with the bodies of miners who were killed or died from harsh treatment during the Japanese occupation in World War II. The pit entrance at Meiyukou Nangou is just one of over twenty "Ten Thousand People Pits" in the mining area.