Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in northwestern Yunnan province, China. Covering an area of , it is bordered by the Tibet Autonomous Region to the northwest, Sichuan province to the northeast, and other parts of Yunnan province to the southwest and southeast - Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture and Lijiang, respectively. Its capital and largest city is Shangri-La. At the end of 2024, the total resident population of the state was 395,000.

Diqing Prefecture is divided into three county-level divisions: Shangri-La, Deqin County, and Weixi Lisu Autonomous County. They were all formerly under the administration of Lijiang (located southeast of this prefecture)."System Evolution", via official website of Diqing government (in Chinese). Accessed April 25, 2015. Diqing Prefecture was established in 1957 and named by its first governor.

Etymology The prefecture's name is derived from the Tibetan word (), which means "auspicious place". In Chinese, the name is written with the characters () and (), which mean "to enlighten" and "to celebrate", respectively. Alternate English names include Dechen and Deqing.Barnett, Robert. Lhasa: Streets with Memories, p. 197 (Columbia University Press, 2010).

Transport Air Diqing Shangri-La Airport, also known simply as Diqing Airport, is one of the biggest airports in the northwest of the Yunnan Province. It is located about from the center of Shangri-La City. There are flights to Lhasa, Chengdu, Beijing (via Kunming), Shanghai Pudong, Shenzhen (via Guiyang), Guangzhou, Kunming and Xishuangbanna.

Road Highways are the main means of transportation to reach Diqing Prefecture. The major highway in this prefecture is China National Highway 214 (a Yunnan-Tibet-Qinghai highway abbreviated "G214").

There are also direct bus routes to Kunming, Lijiang and Panzhihua (Sichuan).

Demography + Ethnic composition of Diqing Prefecture, 2020 census Ethnicity Population Percentage Tibetan 127,685 32.95% Lisu 105,397 27.20% Han 64,823 16.73% Naxi 43,447 11.21% Bai 21,208 5.47% Yi 17,759 4.58% Pumi 2,081 0.54% Miao 1,641 0.42% Hui 1,593 0.41% Hani 251 0.06% Others 1,626 0.42% Total 387,511

Subdivisions

Diqing Prefecture is divided into three county-level divisions: Shangri-La, Deqin County, and Weixi Lisu Autonomous County.

Map Name Hanzi Hanyu Pinyin Tibetan Tibetan Pinyin Wylie Population(2010 Census) Area (km2) Density(/km2)Shangri-La172,98811,61314.89Deqin County66,5897,5968.76Weixi Lisu Autonomous County160,6054,66134.45

History This prefecture is in the southern part of a historical region called Kham, which belonged to the Tibetan Empire many centuries ago. After the decline of that empire in the 9th century, peripheral areas like southern Kham remained part of Tibet more in an ethnographical than a political sense. As a practical matter, by the mid-1700s, the Tibetan Government had mostly lost control of Kham to Manchu (Qing) China and that situation lasted until the end of the Manchu Dynasty in 1912.Goldstein, M.C. "Change, Conflict and Continuity among a community of nomadic pastoralists—A Case Study from western Tibet, 1950–1990" in Resistance and Reform in Tibet (eds. Barnett and Akiner. London: Hurst & Co., 1994).

Southern Kham along with other parts of Yunnan were ruled by the Yunnan clique from 1915 until 1927. Then it was controlled by Governor and warlord Long (Lung) Yun until near the end of the Chinese Civil War, when Du Yuming removed him under the order of Chiang Kai-shek.

There are three county-level divisions in this prefecture: Shangri-La (formerly Zhongdian), Deqin County and Weixi Lisu Autonomous County (formerly Weixi) and they all were under the administration of Lijiang. The Autonomous Prefecture was established in 1957 and named "Diqing" by its first governor.Mackerras, Colin and Yorke, Amanda. The Cambridge Handbook of Contemporary China, p. 209 (Cambridge University Press, 1991).

During the remainder of the 20th century, the prefecture's capital was called Zhongdian but was renamed on December 17, 2001 as Shangri-La City (other spellings: Semkyi'nyida, Xianggelila or Xamgyi'nyilha) after the fictional land of Shangri-La in the 1933 James Hilton novel Lost Horizon, with an eye toward promoting tourism in the area.Yü, Dan. Mindscaping the Landscape of Tibet: Place, Memorability, Ecoaesthetics, p. 47 (Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co, 2015).Merkel-Hess, Kate. China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance, p. 255 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009).

On June 25, 2007 the Pudacuo National Park was established on in this prefecture. On January 11, 2014, there was a major fire in the 1,000-year-old Dukezong Tibetan neighborhood of the capital city Shangri-La, causing much damage.

Notes

References

External links

Official Website (in Chinese) Yunnan-Diqing via chinadiscover.net.