Zhongdian/ShangriLa

The old town of Zhongdian (re-named Shangri-La) with temple, northern Yunnan, China.

Zhongdian, called by its Tibetan population Gyalthang, and officially re-named in 2001 as Shangri-La, after James Hilton’s 1933 novel Lost Horizons, lies at 3,200 metres and was the last trading post before the road entered the gorges and passes through the Hengduan Mountains up to the plateau. The giant prayerwheel was built in 2002 in the grounds of the old town’s central Guishan temple, as much a tribute to the town’s marketing success as to Buddhist piety.