The comic book universes have introduced a lot of fictional cities and countries. Metropolis and Gotham City spring to most people's minds from the DCU, while over at Marvel, the nations of Latveria and Genosha have loomed large. But where are these places on a map? And what real-world locales do they mirror?

In this thread, we will discuss all these fictional realms and, in the end, maybe we'll be able to put together a map and a lesson for the University of comic geography.

To get us started, I made a list of a few cities and countries I could remember off the top of my head. Please feel free to fill in the gaps.


DC Cities
Metropolis
Gotham City
Keystone City
Star City
Opal City
Coast City
Bludhaven

DC Countries
Kandaq
Quemec (?)

Marvel Cities
???

Marvel Countries
Latveria
Genosha

Hi boss, I've done some research:

DC:

Austanburg
Badhnisia
Bialya
Central City
Dinosaur Island
Feithera
Gateway City
Gorilla City
Hub City
Kooey Kooey Kooey
Markovia
Modora
Posidonis (Atlantis)
Qurac
Santa Prisca - Caribbean republic, birthplace of super-villain Bane
Themyscira (Paradise Island) - Country of the Amazons
Tritonis
Vlatava - Balkanic country of Count Vertigo, destroyed by the Spectre
Zandia


MARVEL:

Atillan
Madripoor
Monster Isle
Muir Island
The Savage Land (hidden under Antarctica)
Symkaria
Transia (location of Wundagore Mountain)
Wakanda

Good work, soldier! I'll edit those into the first post later today.

What do I win?

Isn't the island that Titans Tower is on called Titans Island? Or am I completely out of my mind?


I think Metropolis would be Chicago on a map....Slov does not agree....what do the rest of you think?

I always thought it was roughly analagous to Chicago or St. Louis geographicly -- in fact in Smallville it is clear that Metropolis is just a few hours drive from Smallville, which is clearly stated as being in Kansas.

However, in JLA/Avengers, when the JLA flips diminsions from Metropolis to Earth-Marvel (which is closer in size and geography to our Earth), they end up near a stretch of I-95, which runs up and down the East Coast.

I'd say St. Louis works better, because of its closer location to Kansas....but, I've always thought of Metropolis as being next to a large body of water, since they show ports there and such.

I found a site which features all the DCU cities, including what states they are supposedly in, and who lives there. Rather than copy it all down, here it is.

(As a little bonus, it also features all the planets of the DCU.)

Lazy boy!

St. Roch is the current home of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and is clearly analagous to New Orleans.

I read through that...and I think that guy assigns a lot of those locations with little to no actual evidence. For example: For Opal City he says "apparently in either Maryland or New Mexico." Because the two places are so similiar.

Wow, he's like Sherlock Holmes!!!

Somewhere at home I've got a copy of the DC Atlas. It was a book designed to be used with one of the DC roleplaying attempts. They actually mapped out locations for many of the cities. I'll see if I can dig it up and contribute a few things.

From what I remember, Metropolis is somewhere on the East coast.

I remember when I first got into comics, I had thought Gotham was NYC but since then I've heard that New York City actually exists in the DCU so perhaps it's closer to being Chicago. That would make since if Metropolis were to be St. Louis. But now that I think about it, is anyone sure that Chicago and St. Louis don't exist in DC?

heh, just after I put my last post up here, I went over and read DC's Solicits for April and found this for the upcoming Flash issue...



I guess there is a Chicago in DC.

Don't know about St. Louis, but there is a Boston. Wonder Woman lived there for awhile.

Big thanks to Mal for sending me this map:

Your welcome. I had that map scanned from a book that I own called "The Atlas of the DC Universe". It's over 10 years old and is from an old DC roleplaying game. The book also had a map of the US, but I wasn't able to scan that in.

I've always held that Gotham is NYC and Metropolis is Chicago. The fact that these cities have been named in more recent continuity does little to dissuade me from this stand.

I SHALL NOT BE MOVED!

Just found an image of a Flash page which confirms that Keystone City is Kansas, and Central City is across the river in Missouri.

For some reason, I aways thought they were on the west coast. And wouldn't it make more sense to put Keystone City in Pennsylvania, since it's the Keystone State?

I also thought Central City was on the West Coast for one reason or another. And since when did comics factor in common sense?
Silly KJB fruit pies are for kids.

Well, I don't know how many of you caught it...but Metropolis now has to be in New York because Countdown said it was.