Officially Inner Mongolia is classified as one of the provincial-level divisions of North China, but its great stretch means that parts of it belong to Northeast China and Northwest China as well. It borders eight provincial-level divisions in all three of the aforementioned regions (see the introduction for a list), thus tying with Shaanxi for the greatest number of bordering provincial-level divisions. Most of its international border is with Mongolia, known sometimes in Chinese as "Outer Mongolia" (外蒙古), while a small portion is with Russia.
Due to its size, Inner Mongolia has a wide variety of temperatures but the following climactic characteristics apply provincial-wide: four-season monsoon-influenced climate, with long, cold, very dry winters, quick and dry springtime and autumnal transitions (the former of which is prone to sandstorms), and very warm to hot summers. Generally, cold arid or steppe climactic regimes (Koppen BWk, BSk, respectively) dominate.