A visit to Zhongdian county or Shangri-La County, a primarily Tibetan county in northwestern Yunnan Province in southwest China and the capital of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.<br />
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The county was formerly called Zhongdian County (Chinese: ??? Zh?ngdi&agrave;n Xi&agrave;n) but was renamed in 2001 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 local Tibetan population refers to it by the name Gyalthang (Tibetan: ?????????????). &quot;Shangri-La&quot; or &quot;Zhongdian&quot; may also refer to Jiantang Town (??? Ji&agrave;nt&aacute;ng Zh&egrave;n), the capital of the county. (Source: Wikipedia)<br />
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We visited Zhongdian town in December at the time of festivities at the Songzanlin Monastery.