A banner is an administrative division of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China. Banners were first used during the Qing Dynasty, which organized the Mongols into banners except those who belonged to the Manchu Eight Banners. Each banner had sumu as nominal subdivisions. In Inner Mongolia, several banners made up a league. In the rest, including Outer Mongolia, northern Xinjiang and Qinghai, Aimag was the largest administrative division. While it restricted the Mongols from crossing banner borders, the dynasty protected Mongolia from population pressure from China proper. Today, banners are a county level division in the Chinese administrative hierarchy. There are 49 banners in total.

In Inner Mongolia, a sumu is a township-level political/administrative division. The sumu division is equivalent to a township but is unique to Inner Mongolia. It is therefore larger than a village and smaller than a banner (the Inner Mongolia equivalent of the county-level division). Sumu whose population is predominated by ethnic minorities are designated ethnic sumu - parallel with the ethnic township in the rest of China. As of 2010, there is only one ethnic sumu in China, the Evenk Ethnic Sumu.