Shangri-La is a

fictional place Fictional locations are places that exist only in fiction and not in reality, such as the Negaverse or Planet X It can also be inspired by real life places. Writers may create and describe such places to serve as a backdrop for their fictional ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

Kunlun Mountains The Kunlun Mountains constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than . In the broadest sense, the chain forms the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau south of the Tarim Basin. Located in Western China, the Kun ...

, Uses the spelling 'Kuen-Lun'. described in the 1933 novel ''

Lost Horizon ''Lost Horizon'' is a 1933 novel by the English writer James Hilton. The book was turned into a film, also called '' Lost Horizon'', in 1937 by the director Frank Capra and a musical remake in 1973 by the producer Ross Hunter with music by Bu ...

'' by the British author James Hilton. Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a

lamasery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may ...

, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. 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 earthly

paradise In religion and folklore, paradise is a place of everlasting happiness, delight, and bliss. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical, eschatological, or both, often contrasted with the miseries of human ...

, particularly a mythical Himalayan

utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictiona ...

– an enduringly happy land, isolated from the world. Ancient Tibetan scriptures mention ''Nghe-Beyul Khembalung,'' one of seven utopian ''

beyul According to the beliefs of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, Beyul () are hidden valleys often encompassing hundreds of square kilometers, which Padmasambhava blessed as refuges. Tertöns may reveal them from terma at specific and appro ...

s'' which

Tibetan Buddhists Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Arunachal Prades ...

believe were established in the 9th century CE by

Padmasambhava Padmasambhava ('Born from a Lotus'), also known as Guru Rinpoche ('Precious Guru'), was a legendary tantric Buddhist Vajracharya, Vajra master from Oddiyana. who fully revealed the Vajrayana in Tibet, circa 8th – 9th centuries... He is consi ...

as hidden, sacred places of refuge for Buddhists during times of strife.

Possible sources for Hilton

In an interview in 1936 for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', Hilton states that he used "Tibetan material" from the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, particularly the travelogue of two French Catholic priests,

Évariste Régis Huc Évariste Régis Huc, C.M., also known as the Abbé Huc (1 August 1813 – 31 March 1860) was a French Catholic priest, Lazarite missionary, and traveller. He became famous for his accounts of Qing-era China, Mongolia (then known as "Tartary" ...

and Joseph Gabet, to provide the Tibetan cultural and

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

spiritual inspiration for Shangri-La.Michael McRae. (2002). ''The Siege of Shangri-La: The Quest for Tibet's Sacred Hidden Paradise''. New York: Broadway Books. Huc and Gabet travelled a round trip between Beijing and Lhasa in 1844–1846 on a route more than north of Yunnan. Their famous travelogue, first published in French in 1850, went through many editions in many languages. A popular "condensed translation" was published in Britain in 1928.

Current claimants

Hilton visited the

Hunza Valley The Hunza Valley (; ) is a mountainous valley located in the northern region of the Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. Geography The valley stretches along the Hunza River and shares borders with Ishkoman Valley, Ishkoman to the northwest, Shigar Val ...

, located in Gilgit−Baltistan, close to the

China–Pakistan border The China–Pakistan border is long and runs west–east from the tripoint with Afghanistan to the disputed tripoint with India in the vicinity of the Siachen Glacier. It traverses the Karakoram Mountains, one of the world's tallest mountain r ...

, a few years before ''Lost 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. Today various places, such as parts of southern

Kham Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibet, Tibetan regions, the others being Domey also known as Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The official name of this Tibetan region/province is Dotoe (). The original residents of ...

in northwestern

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

province, including the tourist destinations of Zhongdian County, claim the title. In 2001,

Zhongdian County Shangri-La (; ) is a county-level city in northwestern Yunnan province, China, named after the mythical land depicted in the 1933 novel '' Lost Horizon''. It is the capital and largest city of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. It is borde ...

Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in northwestern Yunnan province, China. Covering an area of , it is bordered by the Tibet Autonomous Region to the northwest, Sichuan province to the northeast, and other parts of ...

, northwestern

province, officially renamed to

Shangri-la Shangri-La is a fictional place in Tibet's Kunlun Mountains, Uses the spelling 'Kuen-Lun'. described in the 1933 novel '' Lost Horizon'' by the British author James Hilton. Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently ...

. It is known as "香格里拉" (Xiānggélǐlā) in Chinese, "སེམས་ཀྱི་ཉི་ཟླ།" in Tibetan and "ज्ञानगंज" yanganjin India.

Places named after Shangri-la

In 1942, U.S. President

Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

named his holiday retreat Shangri-La, inspired by the mythical place; it was renamed as

Camp David Camp David is a country retreat for the president of the United States. It lies in the wooded hills of Catoctin Mountain Park, in Frederick County, Maryland, near the towns of Thurmont, Maryland, Thurmont and Emmitsburg, Maryland, Emmitsburg, a ...

in 1953 by President

Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

Searches and documentaries

The American explorers

Ted Vaill Ted may refer to: Names A shortened form of the following: * Edmund * Edward * Thaddeus * Theodore (given name) Art, entertainment, and media Fictional characters * Ted, a character in the post-apocalyptic short story '' I Have No Mouth, ...

and

Peter Klika Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a ...

visited the Muli area of southern

Sichuan Province Sichuan is a Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capita ...

in 1999, and claimed that the Muli

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

in this remote region was the model for Hilton's Shangri-La, which they thought Hilton learned about from articles on this area in several ''National Geographic'' magazines in the late 1920s and early 1930s written by the Austrian-American explorer

Joseph Rock Joseph Francis Charles Rock (1884 – 1962) was an Austrian-American botanist, List of explorers, explorer, geographer, linguistics, linguist, ethnographer and photographer. Life Josef Franz Karl Rock was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of a s ...

."Could This Be the Way to Shangri-La?"
by Timothy Carroll (29 July 2002). ''Electronic Telegraph''. London. Vaill completed a film based on their research, "Finding Shangri-La", which debuted at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...

in 2007. However, Michael McRae unearthed an obscure interview of Hilton from a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' 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. 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 book ''

'' was based on references to the southern

Province from articles published by National Geographic's first resident explorer,

.Brahm, Laurence. (2004). ''Shambhala Sutrah'' (film expedition). On 2 December 2010,

OPB Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) is the primary public media organization for the U.S. state of Oregon as well as southern Washington. It provides news, information, and programming via television stations, dozens of VHF or UHF translators, ...

televised one of

Martin Yan Martin Yan (; born 22 December 1948) is a Chinese-American chef and food writer. He has hosted his award-winning PBS-TV cooking show '' Yan Can Cook'' since 1982. Early years and education With ancestral roots in Hoiping, Yan was born in ...

's ''

Hidden China Hidden or The Hidden may refer to: Film and television Film * ''The Hidden'' (1987 film), an American science fiction/horror film * ''Hidden'' (2005 film) or ''Caché'', a French thriller film * ''The Hidden'' (2005 film), a Spanish-British-Ita ...

'' episodes, "Life in Shangri-La", in which Yan said that "Shangri-La" is the actual name of a real town in the hilly and mountainous region in southwestern

Province, frequented by both Han 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 the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

documentary series ''In Search of Myths and Heroes'', the television presenter and historian Michael Wood suggested that the legendary Shangri-La might be the abandoned city of

Tsaparang Tsaparang () was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Guge in the Garuda Valley, through which the upper Sutlej River flows, in Ngari Prefecture (Western Tibet) near the border of Ladakh. It is 278 km south-southwest of Shiquanhe, Senggezan ...

, and that its two great temples were once home to the kings of

Guge Guge () was an ancient dynastic kingdom in Western Tibet. The kingdom was centered in present-day Zanda County, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region. At various points in history after the 10th century AD, the kingdom held sway over a vast a ...

in modern Tibet. The Travel Channel in 2016 aired two episodes of ''Expedition Unknown'' that followed host Josh Gates to

Lo Manthang Lomanthang () is a rural municipality in Mustang district in Gandaki Province of western Nepal. It is located at the northern end of the district, bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region of China to the north and Lo-Ghekar Damodarkunda rural municip ...

, Nepal and its surrounding areas, including the sky caves found there, in search of Shangri-La. His findings offer no proof that Shangri-La is or was real.

References

Sources

* Allen, Charles. (1999). ''The Search for Shangri-La: A Journey into Tibetan History''. Little, Brown and Company (UK). . Reprinted by Abacus, London. 2000. . * Reinhard, Johan (1978) Khembalung: The Hidden Valley. ''Kailash, A Journal of Himalayan Studies'' 6(1): 5–35, Kathmandu
PDF
* Wood, Michael (2005) ''Michael Wood: In search of Myths and Heroes: Shangri-La'' PBS Educational Broadcasting Company

External links

www.LostHorizon.org
- information about the book, movie, and real life Shangri-Las (Archived) {{Authority control Fictional elements introduced in 1933 Fictional populated places Fictional valleys Tibet in fiction Utopian fiction