Shangri-La

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Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, "Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient. The story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

Several possible places in the Buddhist Himalaya between northern India & Tibet have claimed to be the basis for Hilton's legend, largely to attract tourism. In China, Tao Qian of the Jin Dynasty described a Shangri-La in his work Story of the Peach Blossom Valley. The legendary Kun Lun Mountains in Tibet offer other possible Shangri-La valleys.

A popularly believed inspiration for Shangri-la is the Hunza Valley in northern Pakistan, close to the Chinese border, which Hilton visited 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. A Shangri-la resort in the nearby Skardu valley is a popular tourist attraction.

There are a number of modern Shangri-La pseudo-legends that have developed since 1933 in the wake of the novel & the film made from it. The Nazis had an enthusiasm for Shangri-La too, where they hoped to find an ancient master race in a remote area similar to the Nordic race "unspoiled" by Buddhism. They sent seven expeditions to Tibet, the most famous one led by Ernst Schäfer in 1938.

Another pseudo-legend involves the Ojai Valley as the location for the 1937 Frank Capra film Lost Horizon. The outdoor scenes of cavorting "Shangra-Lees" were in fact filmed in nearby Westlake Village & Palm Springs while the grand lamasery set was built & later dismantled in Victorville, CA. No documentation, including the remaining landscape still shot, reputed to be from an outlook on Highway 150, supports the contention that the Ojai Valley was used as a location in the film.

United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, being considerably fond of Hilton's novel, named the presidential retreat now known as Camp David "Shangri-La" in 1942. That April, United States bombers secretly launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet bombed Tokyo in a daring raid led by Colonel "Jimmy" Doolittle. Since Tokyo was far out of range of any American bomber base at the time, there was intense speculation as to where the bombers had come from. President Roosevelt facetiously told a press conference that the bombers had flown from Shangri-La. In line with this pleasantry, one of the aircraft carriers used in the Pacific ocean was subsequently named USS Shangri-La.

Today, various places claim the title, such as parts of southern Kham in northwestern Yunnan province, including the tourist destinations of Lijiang & Zhongdian. Places like Sichuan & Tibet also claim the real Shangri-La was in its territory. In 2001, Tibet Autonomous Region put forward a proposal that the three regions optimise all Shangri-la tourism resources & promote them as one. After failed attempts to establish a China Shangri-la Ecological Tourism Zone in 2002 & 2003, government representatives of Sichuan & Yunnan provinces & Tibet Autonomous Region signed a declaration of cooperation in 2004. Also in 2003, Zhongdian County in northwestern Yunnan officially renamed itself Shangri-La County. Bhutan, which was until now isolated from outside world & with its unique form of Tibetan Buddhism has been hailed as the last Shangri-La. Another place that has been thought to have inspired the concept of Shangri-La is the Yarlung Tsangpo Canyon.
Shangri-la is often used in a similar context to which "Garden of Eden" might be used, to represent a perfect paradise that exists hidden from modern man. It can sometimes be used as an analogy for a life-long quest or something elusive that is much sought. For a man who spends his life obsessively looking for a cure to a disease, such a cure could be said to be that man's "Shangri-La". It also might be used to represent perfection that is sought by man in the form of love, happiness, or Utopian ideals. It may be used in this context alongside other mythical & famous examples of somewhat similar metaphors such as The Holy Grail, El Dorado, The Fountain of Youth, & to an extent "white whale" (referring to the white whale chased by the obsessed Captain Ahab in the book Moby-Dick).