Shangri-La City — Zhongdian before the 2001 renaming, Gyalthang in Tibetan — is the capital of Diqing, a Tibetan autonomous prefecture in northwest Yunnan. The name was borrowed from James Hilton's 1933 novel Lost Horizon, and the marketing fits the landscape: whitewashed farmhouses built of heavy timber, prayer flags on the roofs, and a sky that seems closer than elsewhere. It is also genuinely high. The altitude shapes everything about a visit, starting with day one.
