In the tiny mountain kingdom of Bhutan, the king once said he viewed “gross national happiness” as the best measure of the nation’s health.

The nation, sandwiched between India and China on the southeastern slopes of the Himalayas, limits the number of visitors each year as it tries to preserve its Tibetan Buddhist way of life. This week, a visitor from the kingdom, Ambassador Om Pradhan, will visit Kansas University to give a speech that some hope will open Lawrence residents’ eyes to a little-known part of the world.

“It is, to me, one of the last Shangri-Las left in the world,” said Felix Moos, a KU anthropology professor who has visited the kingdom and will be involved in Pradhan’s visit.

Pradhan, Bhutan’s former permanent representative to the United Nations, will speak at 12:30 p.m. Monday at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union.

He also will meet with KU leaders, including Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost Richard Lariviere and will ask KU to begin allowing a small number of Bhutanese students each year.

A key topic in his speech will be the country’s relationship with China, its biggest neighbor.

Bhutan has been a monarchy for the past century but is making the transition to a constitutional monarchy with representative government. A 1949 treaty between Bhutan and India calls for India to guide Bhutan in its foreign affairs. India also supplies about 80 percent of the country’s foreign aid.

“Their destiny is very precarious,” said Takao Shibata, a former Japanese diplomat who is the KU chancellor’s lecturer for this academic year and who arranged Pradhan’s visit. The two men know each other from their work as diplomats.

Bhutan, Shibata said, is “an endangered species.”

The visit is sponsored by KU’s Center for East Asian Studies.