Geography
The monastery, with a group of structures packed together on a rolling farm land, located in the town of Jiantang in the Yunnan province, now renamed as Shangri-la town in the renamed Shangri-la county, is in the heart of the mountain range known as Hengduan Mountain Range; it is part of the Mount Baimang Nature Reserve in Yunnan province but the monastery does not have snow covered backdrop. It is delimited in the north west contiguously by Tibet, to the north by Muli and Ganzi, on the west by the Salween River Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, on its south by the Lijiang; the populace is an amalgam of Tibetans, Hui, Bai, Naxi and Han. The town is located on the famous Southern Silk Road, which originates in Sichuan province in the north, crosses Yunnan province and goes to Vietnam.
Well established road links exist from Shangri-la to Lhasa, Litang, Dali and Tibetan Sichuan. It is 198 kilometres (123 mi) to the northwest of Lijiang. Shangri-La is also well connected by air with Lhasa and Kunming from its airport known as Shangri-La Diqing Airport, which is 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) to the south of the town in the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. However, there are no rail links at present. The monastery is an hour's walk from the Shangri-la town and is a major attraction for tourists and the change of name of the town to Shangri-la and the impressive Monastery complex are stated to have encouraged tourism to this place.
Read more about this topic: Ganden Sumtseling Monastery
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