In the year 1893, James Hilton described an eternally peaceful and quiet place amongmountains in the East—— "Shangri-La" in one of his novels for the first time. In the novel "LostHorizon", an English diplomat Conway and his brother Gorge scattered the English citizens andhelped them leave the dangerous region. On their way home,their plane washijackedand felldown into the mountain in the an region. Some lucky survivors were taken to Shangri-la whereConway found lots of fantastic things in such a state founded nearly 200 years ago, in whichthe local people lived up to more than one hundred years old and lived peacefully andharmoniously with the other people, animals and everything here. The place was called "Shangri-La" by the local folks。

James Hilton located "Shangri-La" in a mysterious valley which was surrounded by snowcappedmountains; near where there were snow-clad peaks, blue lakes, broad grassy marshlands, andlamaseries, Buddhist nunneries, mosques, Catholic Church, the human beings and the naturewere in perfect harmony, several religions and varies of nationalities exited at the same time;the temples looked splendid in green and golden; though people contacted the outer world bycaravan for a long time, many foreign experts and scholars had come here to investigate andremained much relics……

Obviously, that is not only a beautiful scenery, but also a kind of artistic conception.

With the novel and the film coming out, Shangri-La became very famous in western countries.Later, a Chinese named Guo Huonian used the name of this place and set up "Shangri-La" HotelGroup which has become one of the most successful hotel group in the world.

At the same time, people didn’t give up looking for the legendary Shangri-La. Up to the end ofthis century, they finally have found——

After inspecting and proving on many aspects, people found that Diqing Prefecture, the only anregion in Yunnan, China, has striking similarity with what’s described in the tale regardingeither on natural scenery or people’s way of living. Therefore, the name of "Diqing?ǎShangri-La"spreads worldwide.