Shangri-la was the name that novelist James Hilton invented for his hidden land of paradise. The Hunza Valley lays claim to have been Hilton's real life inspiration.

For his 1933 novel, British writer James Hilton used the concept of Shambhala as the basis for his "lost" valley of Shangri-La, an isolated mountain community that was a storehouse of cultural wisdom.

Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton.