The region has more than 1,000 rivers, including China's second largest, the Yellow River, which enters Inner Mongolia from Ningxia's Shizui Mountain and forms a U-shape.

According to the results of the 2021 territorial land change survey of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Inner Mongolia has 10 wetland types: forest swamps, shrub swamps, marshy grasslands, inland tidal flats, marshlands, river surface waters, lake surface waters, reservoir waters, ponds, and canals.

Inner Mongolia's total wetland area amounts to 4.86 million hectares, accounting for 4.10 percent of the region's total land area, ranking fourth nationwide.

Wetland types are diverse, with marsh wetlands dominated by marshy grasslands accounting for the largest share, widely distributed along rivers and around lakes of various sizes. Inland tidal flats and forest swamps follow in scale.