The tombs were originally created by the founder of the Western Xia Kingdom (1038-1237 AD), Li Yuanhao, who built over 70 tombs, one for himself, a number for his relatives and more to be left empty, presumably against theft. The Western Xia went on to last through around 12 kings, so that now there are nine main tombs left (being rebuilt) and 140 annex tombs containing various important personages, relatives, concubines or empty spaces.

Each main tomb has four corner towers, and an array of watchtowers, pavilions housing stone tablets, a sacrificial hall and a coffin platform, although most of these buildings are well beyond recognisable. Archeologists also believe that octagonal glazed-tile pagodas once stood by each tomb.

It is one of the largest and best preserved imperial graveyards in China, unique not only in structure but also in their sheer sizes and close proximity to each other. A seven-layered solid pagoda 22 meters in height and octagonal in shape, with each side measurig 12 meters in length, is positioned 10 meters west of the vertical line of each mausoleum, which is also graced with two to three stele pavilions. The boundaries of each mausoleum are marked with four corner turrets, a unique feature of Western Xia mausoleums. The companion tombs are in cylindrical, truncated cones, vaulted and other designs.

The unique characteristics of Western Xia mausoleums are clearly visible on the spiritual terraces. The mausoleum mounds of the Han, Tang and Northern Song dynasties are generally high, square-based packed earth mounds with tapering tops cut flat and gently sloped sides. Completely different, the mounds of Western Xia mausoleums look like squat Buddhist pagodas, round or octagonal and about 20 meters high. Examples seen today have five or seven stories, each of which is built with flying rafters overlaid with rows of tiles, richly decorated with an interspersing of glazed green tiles. The sides of the spiritual terraces are painted a deep red, the red walls and the green tiles providing a striking contrast, making it easy to imagine how magnificent the spiritual terraces must have been.

The tumulus excavated in 1972 has an underground sloping passage, 49 meters long, leading to a square coffin chamber. There's a supplementary pit dug into earth 25 meters deep, at each side of the chamber. Despite a previous excavation, unearthed were still a variety of burial objects: gold ornaments, gilded or silver jewelry, bamboo carvings, copper armour-plates, pearls, broken porcelains etc. The three annex tombs already dug all have a stairway or sloping path to coffin pit. The usual funerary objects in the earth square pits were copper ox and stone horses.