Shangri-La City, China

Shangri-La City, China

Shangri-La City China

Shangri-La was formerly called Zhongdian County (中甸县; Zhōngdiàn Xiàn) but was renamed on 17 December 2001 and upgraded into a county-level city on 16 December 2014 as Shangri-La (other spellings: Semkyi'nyida, Xianggelila, or Xamgyi'nyilha) after the fictional land of Shangri-La in the 1933 James Hilton novel Lost Horizon, in an effort to promote tourism in the area. Formerly, the Tibetan population referred to the city by its traditional name Gyalthang or Gyaitang (Standard Tibetan: རྒྱལ་ཐང།; Wylie: rgyal thang, ZWPY: Gyaitang), meaning "Royal plains". This ancient name is reflected in the Tibetan Pinyin name within the town of Jiantang (建塘; Jiàntáng), the city seat. In the early morning of January 11, 2014, a fire broke out in the 1,000-year-old Dukezong Tibetan neighborhood. About 242 homes and shops were destroyed and 2,600 residents were displaced.[2] About half of the old town was destroyed by the fire, half was spared. After the fire residents were allowed back to their homes and shops. By the end of 2014 rebuilding had started and tourism started to come back. Generally tourism was not affected by the fire, since the main sights in the old town, such as the prayer wheel and temples were not damaged. Many of the other main sights are located outside of the old town. Pudacuo National Park, the first national park in China to meet IUCN standards, is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas World Heritage Site.
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Recommended airport
Diqing Airport (DIG)