According to the prefectural government, 51.4% of Linxia City's population belongs to the "Hui nationality", i.e. the Chinese-speaking Muslims.

Some members of Linxia Prefecture other minority ethnic groups, such as Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar, live in the city.

The wide fertile valley of the river is flanked by loess plateau escarpments on both sides, and the countryside beyond these limits, to the northwest and southeast of the valley, belongs to a separate administrative unit, called Linxia County.

Its pagoda is perched on top of the loess plateau bluff that forms the natural northern limit for the city expansion.

Linxia City has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dwb), typical for eastern Gansu.

During parts of the Song dynasty period, when the Western Xia took control of the more northerly path of the Silk Route, the more southerly Didao-Hezhou-Xining alternative path of the Silk Route may have become particularly important, making all three cities important commercial centers.

[14] Hezhou was already an important Islamic center in the 1670s, when the Kashgarian Sufi master Āfāq Khoja made his tour of the Muslim communities of Qing Empire's northwestern borderlands.

[17] The gongbei shrines around their tombs on Linxia City's west side continue to be important centers of Islamic scholarship.

However, it was a Hezhou native and Tai Baba's most promising student, Ma Laichi who revolutionized the life of northwestern China's Muslims in the mid-18th century by making Hezhou the center of the Hua Si menhuan, the main organization of the Khufiyya Sufi movement.

[19] Soon after the beginning of the Massive Muslim Armed Rebellion in Northwestern China in 1862, Hezhou became one of the main strongholds of the Muslim rebels who fought against the Qing dynasty and killed many non-Muslim Han and Manchu people in Northwestern China.

[20] By late 1872, Qing armies led by general Zuo Zongtang had destroyed the Hui rebels in the regions to the east of Hezhou (Shaanxi and Ningxia), and reached the Tao River, separating today's Linxia Prefecture from its eastern neighbor, Dingxi.

Zuo's attempts to gain a foothold west of the Tao River were stymied by Ma Zhan'ao's Muslim fighters.

[20] Nonetheless, in order to ensure the government's control over the region, the Muslims were prohibited to live within the city walls of Hezhou.

"It is impossible at the present juncture to make any full statement regarding the religious conditions prevailing in this district.

A proclamation put out by the Tuchun of Kansu has forbidden further dispute, but what the future holds without a Ma An-liang remains to be seen.

One of the traditional local products are a certain style of round glasses worn during the Qing dynasty that are still made there today.

[36] The South Bus Station, situated near the Daxia River bridge over which S309 enters the city from the southeast,[11] is served by for frequent (hourly or half-hourly service) buses to Lanzhou, Xiahe, Hezuo, Kangle, Hezheng.

[37] The East Bus Station, located on G213 on the northeastern outskirts of the city, is primarily the hub for shuttle buses serving major towns in nearby counties.