Yulin (Chinese: 榆林; pinyin: Yúlín) is a prefecture-level city in the Shaanxi province of the People's Republic of China. It has an area of 43,578 km² and a population of 3,380,000.

Yulin is the northernmost prefecture-level city of Shaanxi province, and borders the provincial-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north, Shanxi to the east and Ningxia to the west as well as Yan'an City to the south. To the north and northwest of the city lies the Ordos Desert, though the countryside is very green due to the many small shrubs which have been planted to slow the process of desertification. The city is based in a valley which extends north-south, which rises to a very large vantage point to the north east, where a spectacular view of the west and northwest is seen.

Yulin has a continental, monsoon-influenced semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk), with very cold, rather long winters, and hot and somewhat humid summers. Monthly averages range from −9.4 °C (15.1 °F) to 23.4 °C (74.1 °F) in July, and the annual mean is 8.29 °C (46.9 °F). Spring is especially prone to sandstorms blowing in from the northwest. There is only 366 millimetres (14.4 in) of precipitation annually, 73% of which occurs from June to September. Due to the aridity, diurnal temperature variation is large for most of the year, averaging 13.8 °C (24.8 °F) annually, and sunshine is abundant, averaging 2,780 hours annually.

 Shaanxi (help·info) (simplified Chinese: 陕西; traditional Chinese: 陝西; pinyin: Shǎnxī; Wade–Giles: Shan-hsi; Postal map spelling: Shensi) is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province. Shaanxi is the historical home, along with Gansu of the dialect of the Dungans, of the Hui people, who emigrated out of China to Central Asia.

By regular Hanyu Pinyin rules, if tone marks are not written, both Shaanxi and the neighbouring province of Shanxi, to the east of Shaanxi, should be spelled "Shanxi"; the difference is in tone: Shānxī (山西) and Shǎnxī (陕西). To make the difference clear without tonal marks, the spelling "Shaanxi" was contrived (following the romanization system of Yuen Ren Chao) for the province of Shǎnxī, while "Shanxi" is used for the province of Shānxī. Shaanxi is the official spelling on Chinese Government's official web portal. This makes "Shaanxi" the only name of Chinese provinces that has not been romanized according to pinyin rules.