Shangri-La City

Shangri-la 香格里拉市 · སེམས་ཀྱི་ཉི་ཟླ་གྲོང་ཁྱེར།
County-level city
Old Town of Jiantang
Location of Shangri-La County (pink) and Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (yellow) within Yunnan
Shangri-La Location of the county seat in Yunnan
Coordinates: 27°50′N 99°42′E / 27.833°N 99.700°E / 27.833; 99.700
Country	People's Republic of China
Province	Yunnan
Prefecture	Dêqên
Area
• Total	11,613 km2 (4,484 sq mi)
Population
• Total	130,000
• Density	11/km2 (29/sq mi)
Time zone	China Standard (UTC+8)
Postal code	674400
Area code(s)	0887
Website	www.shangri-la.gov.cn

Shangri-La is a county-level city in northwestern Yunnan province, People's Republic of China and is the location of the seat of the Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Name

In the second half of the 20th century Shangri-La was called Zhongdian (Chinese: 中甸 Zhōngdiàn) but was renamed in 17 December 2001 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. The original Tibetan population previously refers to this place 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 of the town of Jiantang (建塘; Jiàntáng), the county seat.

Towns

• Jiantang Town
• Zhongdian Town
• Hutiaoxia Town
• Jinjiang Town
• Luoji Township

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.^[1]

Climate

Shangri-La has a monsoon-influenced humid continental climate (Köppen Dwb), due to the high elevation. Winters are chilly but sunny, with a January 24-hour average temperature of −3.2 °C (26.2 °F), while summers are cool, with a July 24-hour average temperature of 13.5 °C (56.3 °F), and feature frequent rain; more than 70% of the annual precipitation is delivered from June to September. The annual mean is 5.85 °C (42.5 °F). Except during the summer, nights are usually sharply cooler than the days. Despite the dryness of the winter, the small amount of precipitation is generally sufficient to cause major transportation dislocations and isolate the area between November and March.

National park

Gandan Sumtseling Monastery

Tibetan houses in the outskirts of Zhongdian

• 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.

Transport

• The town's airport is Diqing Airport. Covering an area of 225 hectares, it is one of the biggest airports in the northwest of Yunnan. There are flights to Kunming, Chengdu, Lhasa, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
• Many travelers use the county town as a gateway into Tibet, either travelling many days overland by jeep to Lhasa, or by flying from the city's airport. However, the town itself is a tourist destination, primarily due to the nearby Gandan Sumtseling Monastery (དགའ་ལྡན་སུམ་རྩེན་གླིང་, Ganden Sumtsen Ling, 松赞林寺 Sōngzànlín Sì), Pudacuo National Park, and Tiger Leaping Gorge.
• China National Highway 214

See also

• Forbes, Andrew ; Henley, David (2011). China's Ancient Tea Horse Road. Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books. ASIN: B005DQV7Q2
• Shangri-La
• Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas - UNESCO World Heritage Site

References

External links

• Shangri-La City Official Website

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Shangrila.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Xamgyi'nyilha County.

Coordinates: 27°50′N 99°42.1′E / 27.833°N 99.7017°E / 27.833; 99.7017