Shangri-La is afictional place in Tibet'sKunlun Mountains,[1] described in the 1933 novelLost Horizon by the British authorJames Hilton. Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from alamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains.[1] In the novel, the people who live in Shangri-La are almost immortal, living hundreds of years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly ageing in appearance.
Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthlyparadise, particularly a mythical Himalayanutopia – an enduringly happy land, isolated from the world. AncientTibetan scriptures mention the existence of seven such places asNghe-Beyul Khembalung.[2] Khembalung is one of several Utopiabeyuls (hidden lands similar to Shangri-La) whichTibetan Buddhists believe thatPadmasambhava established in the 9th century CE as idyllic, sacred places of refuge for Buddhists during times of strife.[3]
In an interview in 1936 forThe New York Times, Hilton states that he used "Tibetan material" from theBritish Museum, particularly the travelogue of two French Catholic priests,Évariste Régis Huc andJoseph Gabet, to provide the Tibetan cultural andBuddhist spiritual inspiration for Shangri-La.[4][5] Huc and Gabet travelled a round trip between Beijing and Lhasa in 1844–1846 on a route more than 250 kilometres (160 mi) north of Yunnan. Their famous travelogue, first published in French in 1850,[6] went through many editions in many languages.[7] A popular "condensed translation" was published in Britain in 1928.[8]
Hilton visited theHunza Valley, located inGilgit−Baltistan, close to theChina–Pakistan border, a few years beforeLost Horizon was published. Being an isolated green valley surrounded by mountains, enclosed on the western end of the Himalayas, it closely matches the description in the novel, and is believed to have inspired Hilton's physical description of Shangri-La.[9]
Today various places, such as parts of southernKham in northwesternYunnan province, including the tourist destinations of Zhongdian County, claim the title. In 2001,Zhongdian County inDiqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, northwesternYunnan province, officially renamed toShangri-la. It is known as "香格里拉" (Xiānggélǐlā) in Chinese, "སེམས་ཀྱི་ཉི་ཟླ།" in Tibetan and "ज्ञानगंज" [gyanganj] in India.
Shangri-La was the name given toCamp David byFranklin D. Roosevelt, the 32ndpresident of the United States, in 1942, inspired by the mythical place.[10] The modern-day name was given to the retreat in 1953 byDwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th U.S. president.
The American explorersTed Vaill andPeter Klika visited theMuli area of southernSichuan Province in 1999, and claimed that the Mulimonastery in this remote region was the model for Hilton's Shangri-La, which they thought Hilton learned about from articles on this area in severalNational Geographic magazines in the late 1920s and early 1930s written by the Austrian-American explorerJoseph Rock.[11] Vaill completed a film based on their research, "Finding Shangri-La", which debuted at theCannes Film Festival in 2007. However, Michael McRae unearthed an obscure interview of Hilton from aNew York Times gossip column in which he reveals that his cultural inspiration for Shangri-La, if it is anywhere, is more than 250 km north of Muli on the route travelled by Huc and Gabet.[4][5]
Between 2002 and 2004 a series of expeditions were led by the author and filmmaker Laurence Brahm in western China which determined that the Shangri-La mythical location in Hilton's bookLost Horizon was based on references to the southernYunnan Province from articles published by National Geographic's first resident explorer,Joseph Rock.[12]
On 2 December 2010,OPB televised one ofMartin Yan'sHidden China episodes, "Life in Shangri-La", in which Yan said that "Shangri-La" is the actual name of areal town in the hilly and mountainous region in southwesternYunnan Province, frequented by bothHan and Tibetan locals. Martin Yan visited arts and craft shops and local farmers as they harvested crops, and sampled their cuisine. However, this town was not originally named Shangri-La, but was renamed so in 2001 to increase tourism.
In the "Shangri-La" episode of theBBC documentary seriesIn Search of Myths and Heroes, the television presenter and historianMichael Wood suggested that the legendary Shangri-La might be the abandoned city ofTsaparang, and that its two great temples were once home to the kings ofGuge in modern Tibet.
The Travel Channel in 2016 aired two episodes ofExpedition Unknown that followed host Josh Gates toLo Manthang, Nepal and its surrounding areas, including thesky caves found there, in search of Shangri-La. His findings offer no proof that Shangri-La is or was real.
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