China’s Northernmost City Mohe Starts Heating Season

Mohe, China’s northernmost county-level city, officially switched on its central heating supply on September 12, 2026 — 13 days earlier than planned — as temperatures in the far northeastern city fell below 0°C, according to Xinhua News. The heating season will run for more than eight months, continuing until about mid-May 2027, making it one of the earliest-starting and longest heating periods in the country.

Located at the northern tip of Heilongjiang Province near the Russian border, Mohe is known as China’s “North Pole.” Its long, severe winters and extreme cold make an early and extended heating season a matter of routine necessity rather than an unusual event.

Heating Infrastructure Readied Ahead of Schedule

At the boiler workshop of Mohe Huapeng Heating Co., Ltd., all heating units were started and workers monitored and calibrated boiler data as the system came online, Xinhua reported. The heating department had completed pipe network maintenance, coal storage, and equipment upkeep by late August, in preparation for the post-autumn temperature drop.

“To ensure heating effectiveness, in the summer we overhauled and maintained the heat-source exchange stations and heating pipe network,” said Shi Junhao, workshop director at Mohe Huapeng Heating, according to Xinhua. “Next, we will dynamically adjust heating parameters according to temperature trends, and fully guarantee residents a warm winter.”

The early switch-on follows a familiar pattern in one of China’s coldest inhabited regions. According to CCTV News, recent cooling sent the local minimum temperature below 0°C, prompting the heating department to move ahead of schedule. The wire report was also carried by TMTPost, citing Xinhua.

A City Defined by Extreme Cold

Mohe holds China’s records for northernmost and highest-latitude county-level city. The lowest temperature ever recorded there is -53°C, and the city’s annual average temperature sits at about -3.5°C, with only around 80 frost-free days each year, per CCTV. Those conditions explain why local heating routinely begins in September and can stretch toward mid-May.

The start date varies year to year with the weather. The research notes that Mohe began heating on September 14 in 2023, while the 2025 season — reported in September of that year — started on October 10, two days earlier than the prior year. The 2026 season’s 13-day advance reflects how quickly autumn temperatures can fall at such high latitudes.

For residents, the arrival of heat is an immediate and tangible comfort. “When I got up from my nap at noon today, I found the room was already warm. I touched the radiator — the heating was on,” Mohe resident Zhang Liying told Xinhua. “Mohe’s heating has been very good these past few years.”

Cold as a Resource

Beyond daily comfort, Mohe has worked to turn its notorious cold into an economic asset. The city brands itself around “extreme cold” and “finding the North,” promoting winter ice-and-snow tourism while also drawing summer visitors seeking its cool climate, according to earlier reporting cited in the research. The effort reflects a broader trend among China’s coldest regions to convert geographic hardship into a distinctive travel draw.

Running a heating network of this scale through an eight-month winter is a substantial logistical undertaking. Earlier reporting described Mohe’s supplier maintaining a heat source, multiple heat exchange stations, and hundreds of kilometers of heating pipelines, with 24-hour monitoring and repair teams during extreme cold snaps — arrangements designed to keep the system stable when demand peaks.

What to Watch

With the 2026 season now underway, attention will turn to how the system performs through the depths of winter, when temperatures can plunge far below -30°C. The city’s ability to keep its residents — tens of thousands of people in one of China’s smallest and coldest county-level cities — warm over eight months, and to keep drawing tourists eager to experience China’s coldest corner, will once again test its heating infrastructure and its cold-weather economy alike.

For now, the message from Mohe is simple: winter has arrived early, and the radiators are already warm.