Atlas of Imagined Places E-Book

Matt Brown

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Atlases of the Imagination
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 894

Beschreibung

WINNER, Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2022: Illustrated Travel Book of the Year. HIGHLY COMMENDED, British Cartographic Society Awards 2022. From Stephen King's Salem's Lot to the superhero land of Wakanda, from Lilliput of Gulliver's Travels to Springfield in The Simpsons, this is a wondrous atlas of imagined places around the world. Locations from film, tv, literature, myths, comics and video games are plotted in a series of beautiful vintage-looking maps. The maps feature fictional buildings, towns, cities and countries plus mountains and rivers, oceans and seas. Ever wondered where the Bates Motel was based? Or Bedford Falls in It's a Wonderful Life? The authors have taken years to research the likely geography of thousands of popular culture locations that have become almost real to us. Sometimes these are easy to work out, but other times a bit of detective work is needed and the authors have been those detectives. By looking at the maps, you'll find that the revolution at Animal Farm happened next to Winnie the Pooh's home. Each location has an an extended index entry plus coordinates so you can find it on the maps. Illuminating essays accompanying the maps give a great insight into the stories behind the imaginary places, from Harry Potter's wizardry to Stone Age Bedrock in the Flintstones. A stunning map collection of invented geography and topography drawn from the world's imagination. Fascinating and beautiful, this is an essential book for any popular culture fan and map enthusiast.

Leseprobe

INTRODUCTION

THE USA

ALTERED STATES

CANADA AND THE ARCTIC

GREEN GABLES AND GOLD NUGGETS

CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

THE OLD NEW WORLD

SOUTH AMERICA

CITIES OF GOLD AND BANANA REPUBLICS

WESTERN EUROPE

THE OLD COUNTRIES

EASTERN EUROPE

SCIENCE AND SORCERY, SHTETLS AND SOVIETS

THE NORDIC COUNTRIES

HERE BE DRAGONS (AND TROLLS)

UK AND IRELAND

FAKE BRITAIN AND SHAM ROCK

THE MIDDLE EAST AND CENTRAL ASIA

BEYOND THE SILK ROAD

SOUTH ASIA

FROM PESHAWAR TO THE PENINSULA

AFRICA

THINGS COME TOGETHER

SOUTHEAST ASIA

WILDS, WAVES, WORLDS AND WARS

JAPAN

THE LAND OF THE RISING GUNDAM

CHINA AND NORTH-EAST ASIA

JOURNEY TO THE EAST

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

THE ORIGINAL LAND OF OZ

ANTARCTICA

THE NIGHTMARE CONTINENT

THE PACIFIC OCEAN

ISLAND HOPPING

THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

LOST WORLDS OF THE WESTERN SEA

LOCATION INDEX

SOURCE INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

elcome to the atlas of places that do not exist. Across these pages, you’ll find around 5,000 fictional locations, including towns, cities, countries, seas, buildings, deserts, mountains, forests, underwater tunnels, space elevators and at least one giant, time-manipulating baby buried in an Antarctic glacier. None are found in a conventional atlas, but all exist in works of the imagination.

This atlas began life in 2018, when we published our map ‘Fake Britain’ on the website Londonist.com, followed by its companion ‘Unreal London’. We got so much positive feedback that the ‘Fake Britain’ project escalated into a full-blown world atlas of fictional locations, which you now hold in your hands.

The maps feature age-old legends like El Dorado, Atlantis, Utopia, Camelot, the Mountains of Kong and lost continent of Lemuria. We’ve woven in inventions from classic literature, such as Charles Dickens’ Coketown, Mary Anne Evan’s Middlemarch, Proust’s Combray or García Márquez’s Macondo. Hundreds of locales from popular culture are baked into the mix, including Gotham City, Metropolis, Hogwarts, Twin Peaks, Erinsborough, Vice City, Schitt’s Creek, Arendelle, King Solomon’s Mines, a heap of Pokémon gym-cities, and – hardest to map of all – Springfield from The Simpsons. We’ve also peppered the maps with fictional locations from more surprising sources, including military training scenarios, theme-park rides, a Frank Zappa song, TV commercials and even a few unfortunate slips of the tongue that led to the birth of entire fictional nations (see Central America and Africa maps 1 and 2).

Dozens of genres and subgenres emerge from the pages. Look out for the many Ruritanian romances of central Europe, the international Utopias inspired by Thomas More’s original and their dystopian cousins, Brazilian telenovelas, Australian soaps, Robinsonades, high-school manga, Scandi noirs, polar weirdness, the ‘lost world’ tales of Africa and South America, and many more.

We hope that the atlas helps you to better understand the geography of your favourite works of fiction. But it also serves as a springboard for finding stories you might not already know. Look at the area around your hometown; do you recognize all the nearby creations? Or perhaps check out our entry for a country you’re planning on visiting, and track down the local fiction. Then there’s the joy of looking for unusual juxtapositions. The village of Asterix the Gaul is right next door to the climactic battleground of Saving Private Ryan; while the stranded hero of Cast Away might have been within rescue range of Captain Nemo’s Nautilus (and those are just the Tom Hanks connections).

It’s a whole new world!

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY A FICTIONAL PLACE?

It might seem like a question with an easy answer. A fictional place is any location that has no existence in reality, a creation of pure imagination. Yet, in compiling this atlas, we’ve found that not all fictional places are created equal. We’ve identified four different classes listed in order below, from the most heavily fantastical, down to those grounded closest to reality:

1. An entirely made-up place, but which exists somewhere other than our familiar Earth (e.g. Narnia, Westeros). Such places are not shown in this atlas.

2. An entirely made-up place, set somewhere on Earth (e.g. Liberty City, Genovia, the Island of Sodor). These places make up the majority of locations in the atlas.

3. A location whose name is fictional, but which is heavily based on somewhere real (e.g. Thomas Hardy’s ‘Wessex’ towns, or Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, heavily modelled on Brussels). These too are shown in the atlas.

4. A location whose name is real, but whose characteristics have been fictionalized (e.g. the Oxford of His Dark Materials). We have not mapped such locations.

Thus, to qualify for inclusion a place has to have at least a fictional name and to exist upon our Earth.

For visual media, we’ve generally mapped locations to where they’re ‘meant to be’, rather than where they were filmed. It frequently has to be that way. For example, had we matched Sokovia (from Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron)to its filming location, then this Central European country would lie within the north London suburb of Hendon, the ‘Battle of Sokovia’ being filmed here at the Metropolitan Police’s former training college. Elsewhere, however, we have used filming locations as secondary canon in the absence of other clues.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS ...

Read the introduction to almost any cartographic book and you’ll spot a health warning: ‘Maps are not 100 per cent faithful reproductions of the terrain they seek to cover, but reflect the biases of their compilers’ (or something to that effect). This observation has become something of a cliché, though it is grounded in truth. All mapmakers are faced with choices about what to include and what to exclude. The decisions they reach may be influenced by political or cultural biases, or to suit the needs of a particular audience. A factual atlas of the world published in China will look very different to one published in India, the UK or Mozambique. The print language will vary, of course, but so too might accepted political boundaries and the locations given most prominence.

A fictional atlas, as we have discovered, is even more prone to partisanship. For starters, it cannot hope to be comprehensive. While nobody knows just how many novels have ever been published in human history, they must run into the tens of millions; as of December 2020, IMDb.com – the world’s largest database of film, television and video games – listed 7.5 million titles, up from 6.5 million at the start of the year. And then there are radio plays, podcasts, folklore, comics, board games and other media to consider. The fruits of human creativity are essentially infinite, and while not all of these works will include fictional locations, a fraction of infinity is itself still infinite.

In compiling this atlas, we’ve thus had to make dizzying, whimsical, utterly biased decisions at every turn. We find that mapping the fictional is more of an art than a science. While you’d expect a conventional atlas to at least show every major city, we’ll leave one out with blithe abandon if we find it too obscure, boring, or difficult to ascribe a location to. Sometimes, we’ll include individual buildings, such as the Bates Motel from Psycho, or Dorothy’s farm from The Wizard of Oz, because one expects to see them, and at other times leave equally noteworthy buildings unaccounted for due to pressures of space.

Furthermore, the constraints of language mean that the vast majority of entries are from English-language sources (or at least works translated into English). That’s a huge bias right there, but a necessary one if we were to keep the material manageable in book form.

That said, we tried to stick to an equitable set of rules where possible:

* To qualify for inclusion, fictional places must play a major role in the source material. This excludes locations that (say), only merit a passing mention in one episode of a TV show.

* A location should be reasonably well-anchored in real geography. A fictional town described as being ‘somewhere in the American Midwest’ probably wouldn’t cut it – the area is too vast – but one located ‘somewhere in northern Wisconsin’ probably would.

* That ‘real geography’ must also be somewhere on our Earth, or a closely parallel Earth. Sadly, that means realms such as Earthsea or Middle Earth are not eligible for this atlas. (Tolkien’s legendarium supposedly takes place on our Earth, but in a different geological age, and so can’t be mapped in any meaningful way onto the present arrangement of continents.)

* Some sources, such as Greek mythology, the universes of Marvel and DC – or even Pokémon (!) – offer hundreds of potential locations. In these cases, we’ve tried to strike a balance, including locations considered important or interesting or geographically diverse. This also prevented the maps being overloaded by any one source.

* Locations that are inherently offensive are generally not included. For example, the 1980s Transformers cartoon had several episodes featuring the fictional North African nation of Carbombya, a parody Arab state named and portrayed in such poor taste as to prompt voice actor Casey Kasem (who was of Lebanese descent) to leave the show.

And, most importantly ...

*Any of the above rules can be broken if a location is so famous that it simply has to be included ... or if we found it fun to do so.

THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY ...

In compiling these maps, we had to make some tough decisions. Perhaps the hardest was ‘What to do with Oz?’ Though most famously associated with MGM’s 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz, author L. Frank Baum’s imagined world is far wider than Munchkinland, the Yellow Brick Road and the Emerald City. Over the course of 14 novels, Baum sketched out a whole continent, with such evocative place names as Winkie Country, the Nonestic Ocean, Rinkitink and the Kingdom of Ix. It would be a joy to include.

At first blush, Oz would seem to be another realm like Narnia – a parallel dimension, somewhere over the rainbow, ineligible for inclusion within this atlas. But Baum had somewhere a bit more tangible in mind. His literary Oz has always been depicted as a part of our world, and some entries in the canon even hint as to its location. In one story, Dorothy returns to Oz after being swept overboard during a voyage from California to Australia, indicating a location in the northern Pacific. A sighting of the North Star further confirms Oz to lie within the boreal hemisphere. Even so, these realms feel too hallucinatory or otherworldly to fit the real Earth. Most famously, Dorothy’s adventures in the 1938 movie end with her awakening in her own bed, as though Oz were all a dream. And so we have left it (for now, at least), as an eternal realm of the imagination, rather than terra firma upon this good Earth.

Other near misses should be noted. George Orwell’s 1984 is very much set on our planet; within an horrifically totalitarian vision of the (then) near-future. The world of 1984 is divided into three superstates – Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania, the latter including Airstrip One (formerly Great Britain), where protagonist Winston Smith lives under the menacing gaze of Big Brother. Each superstate stretches over such vast territories that it would be cumbersome to record across our maps, thus they have been omitted. Other empires or polities larger than the scope of our maps have been similarly left off. Gilead (a reworked USA) from The Handmaid’s Tale, and the World State of Brave New World are further examples. The vast future continent of Zothique, dreamed up by Clark Ashton Smith, is another.

Finally, the atlas almost contained a further thousand or so locations drawn from a wide variety of sources, yet which sadly proved too sketchily located to pin on a map. The most frustrating of all must be the 55 fictitious metropoli from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, all of which have some remarkable and exotic quality. Their locations are never described, so they can’t be charted, while the ‘solution’ of considering all 55 as reflections of Venice is an equally unmappable proposition.

A NOTE ON SOURCES

We’ve been asked many times: ‘How do you find fictional locations in the first place?’ There is no quick answer. Our starting point was our own intuition. What films, books and games had we enjoyed with fictional settings? We then scoured the internet, beginning with Wikipedia. Whatever your opinion on the accuracy of the site, its innumerable lists make excellent starting points for research. These range from broadly helpful topics like ‘List of Fictional Countries’ and ‘List of Fictional Islands’ right through to more specific pages, such as ‘Places in the Works of Madeleine L’Engle’ and ‘List of Fictional Prisons’. Another key source has been fan sites and wikis. Any major work of fiction these days has at least one. These have been invaluable for mining locations and helping to narrow down where they should be placed on the map.

We’ve consulted numerous books during this project, from the original source materials through to other atlases and compilatory works. Chief among them is The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi. First published in 1980, this remarkable tome is a gazetteer of fictional places from literature (including places we couldn’t map, such as the aforementioned Middle Earth and Earthsea). We’d highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys this atlas. Other works we commend include The Writer’s Map (2018, edited by Huw Lewis-Jones), The Phantom Atlas (2016, Edward Brooke-Hitching) and the Marvel Atlas (2007, Stuart Vandal et al).

A NOTE ON ACCURACY

As you’d imagine, some locations are easier to map than others. The Wessex towns of Thomas Hardy, for example, are a doddle to position, because they’re simply alternative names for real towns. Others are much more sketchy. We might easily discover the country a town belongs to, but not its region. In such instances (and there are many), we’ve used clues such as the terrain (mountainous, coastal, flat ...), hints in the place name, natural resources in the area, tip-offs in the dialogue (such as the mention of nearby real towns), and even the flora and fauna. In other words, educated guesswork. We’d like to emphasize that the ultimate authority is the author(s) of the work in question; our placements should be regarded as our own personal interpretation, and by no means definitive.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The world has been divided up into 18 territories, with some overlap around the edges. We’ve written a brief introduction to each territory, which pulls together some of the major themes and genres seen upon that map. We’ve further picked out 20 locations or more on each map for specific annotations. These are places that may have interesting tales to tell, or which require a bit of explanation. Every location in the atlas is given in the index at the end, complete with its source.

pringfield, Bedford Falls, Gotham City, Smallville ... the Land of the Free is apparently the Land of Make Believe, for the USA provides the stage for hundreds of A-list locations that only exist in the imagination.

Within these pages we’ve charted everything from prehistoric cities (The Flintstones) to dystopias (The Hunger Games, The Walking Dead). But America’s dramatic ballast lies in the small town. You find them all over the map, offering a blank canvas for adventure and misadventure. Here is the gossipy backwater of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio; there is the St Petersburg, Missouri, of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and cartoonish burgs like Frostbite Falls, the Minnesota home of Rocky & Bullwinkle. Horror and tragedy abound, too, from the sickly miasma of Dickens’s Eden (Martin Chuzzlewit) to the shark-infested waters of Amity, Massachusetts (Jaws), the small town is, as Americans say, where it’s at.

Let us not ignore the metropolis, though. That’s with a big ‘M’ in the case of Superman, whose adopted city lies on the coast of Delaware. Batman’s Gotham City is just next door in New Jersey. Though both began as reflections of New York, Metropolis and Gotham have developed unique identities that mirror their favourite sons: the Man of Tomorrow and the Dark Knight. We’ve mapped several dozen analogues of Los Angeles or its suburbs, encompassing every genre and medium. There’s Knots Landing of the eponymous 1980s soap opera, Cuesta Verde from Poltergeist, Los Santos from the Grand Theft Auto games, and even Beaverly Hills – an alternate reality populated by anthropomorphic animals, courtesy of DC Comics.

Likewise, echoes of New York City dominate the East Coast. Readers of The Great Gatsby will quickly recognize East and West Egg on Long Island, while gamers will clock Grand Theft Auto’s Liberty City. Even the animators of Japan have made their mark here, contributing post-apocalyptic Paradigm City (The Big O). And who can resist the charms of sophisticated Empire City (Steven Universe) or bemaned Gnu York, another animal metropolis? New New York and Long Long Island meanwhile hail from Matt Groening’s Futurama.

Some states are tepid. Hawaii, Michigan, Oklahoma, Utah and much of the south-east are minnows of fictional geography. Yet even here we find some remarkable creations. Take Stones Hill (elevation 550m/1,800ft), the Floridan mountain from which Jules Verne chose to launch his voyage From the Earth to the Moon. Standing five times higher than any ‘real’ hill in the Sunshine State, it may even be visible from nearby Xanadu, the palatial hermitage of Citizen Kane. Spurious the mountain may be, yet Verne’s use of Florida as a springboard to the lunar surface foreshadowed actual history.

Further writers have contributed to the fictive weft, sometimes providing entire regions. H.P. Lovecraft wove sinister settlements so convincingly into the landscape of his native New England that Massachusetts is often referred to as Lovecraft Country, quite literally in the case of Matt Ruff’s recent novel of the same name. Neighbouring Maine is the playground of Stephen King, whose eerie pen has conjured such disagreeable locations as Jerusalem’s Lot, Shawshank Prison, and the ubiquitous Castle Rock and Derry. Further afield, while Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is infamous for its portrayal of the relationship between a middle-aged man and a 12-year-old girl, it is also notable for its fictional topography, which stretches from New England to the Midwest.

Sinclair Lewis meanwhile fills his fictitious state of Winnemac – an amalgamation of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan – with imagined cities. Other fictive states, with evocative names such as Keystone, Euphoria, and New Temperance, come to us from every medium.

Of all the maps in this atlas, the fictional US is likely to have the most omissions. The source material is simply too vast. Like prospectors of the Old West, we sift for slivers of gold, knowing that the widest pan cannot catch every grain. But with nearly 1,200 fictional nuggets on the map, these are no slim pickings.

WHERE IS SPRINGFIELD?

‘1796; a fiercely determined band of pioneers leaves Maryland after misinterpreting a passage in the Bible. Their destination: New Sodom. This is their story.’

- The Simpsons, ‘Lisa the Iconoclast’.

So begins the saga of Springfield, fiction’s most cromulent burg. After 30 seasons and over 600 episodes, the hometown of The Simpsons has become the unquestionable capital of sitcom cities. Bedrock of The Flintstones might proudly proclaim itself ‘First With Fire’ but no location has made quite as much impact on pop culture as Springfield.

Part of this longevity must be grounded in the town’s endless versatility. Springfield can twist itself to represent any part of the USA, allowing stories to remain unconstrained by a fixed geographic location. Family Guy resolutely sets its Quahog in Rhode Island, thus constraining itself to a cultural heritage of puritanism, clam-fishing, and snooty rich types from Newport. Springfield meanwhile is ever-adaptive to the topographic and demographic needs of the script, as evidenced by its exceptionally diverse range of cultural enclaves; this one town sports Italian, Jewish, Russian and New Jersey communities – there’s even a tiny Tibet Town in a gated alley beside Chinatown.

Of course, this makes Springfield an utter nuisance to map! The show itself is notoriously gleeful in how it reinterprets history and topography on a whim. In some episodes, the town was founded by settlers led west by Jebediah Springfield, while other times it’s Jebediah’s birthplace. Something’s fishy here, and it has nothing to do with the nuclear plant’s mutagenic discharge. Perhaps we can point the finger at Jebediah’s secret past as silver-tongued pirate Hans Sprungfeld, his falsified identity and doctoring of history helping to explain some of the inconsistencies in the town’s backstory.

Truthfully, the subject of Springfield’s geographic location has become a much-loved joke within the show. The name of its state might be drowned out by a sound-effect when spoken, or Bart might step into foreground just as Lisa points to a map. Infamously, The Simpsons Movie saw Ned Flanders lead Bart Simpson to a peak from where all four states that border Springfield may be viewed: Ohio, Nevada, Maine and Kentucky ... Doh!

The best explanation is that Springfield is Anytown, USA; like Schrodinger’s Cat, it can exist in multiple states (both quantum and federal) simultaneously, collapsing back into a nether-realm of impossibilities once attempts are made to study it closer.

But for the purposes of this map, Springfield had to be charted. Our most satisfactory solution was to embrace the oft-cited notion that it occupies a fictional state (official motto: Not Just Another State). Frequent Simpsons director David Silverman has even named Springfield’s state as North Tacoma, which squares with the ‘NT’ or ‘TA’ postal abbreviations sometimes seen in the show.

At last, things fall into place. ‘Tacoma’ is the Salish name for Mount Rainier, the highest peak in the Pacific Cascades, and Springfield’s frontier-times founding, temperate climate and proximity to mountains, deserts, forests and the ocean all align with the Pacific Northwest. Meanwhile, creator Matt Groening was born in Oregon and educated in Washington state.

And so we proudly present to you the city of Springfield, an iconic settlement that brings both pride and shame to the great Pacific Northwest state of North Tacoma. Never mind that Springfield’s founding predates the Lewis and Clarke expedition – we’ll blame that discrepancy on Jebediah.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Flanders!

INPUT! INPUT!

Loveable robot Johnny 5 might have affirmed his life in 1986’s Short Circuit, but it took a sequel to see his personhood recognized by the world at large. Short Circuit 2 (1988) thus saw Johnny up sticks to a major American metropolis, one that sits within a geological location at once specific and vague. Something about the place suggests New York, but Johnny is presented with a guidebook emblazoned with an image of the St Louis Arch, and a climactic dockside fight is identified as taking place off a street named ‘Lakeshore’...

... and the cars all carry Ontario license plates. Oh Canada!

Yup, it’s a classic case of budget-crunch in action. Although the scriptwriters had hoped to take Johnny to NYC, the film was actually shot entirely on location in Toronto, with most direct references to New York being scrubbed from the script. But based on all the above clues, a Midwest location suggests itself, somewhere on the Great Lakes, close enough to St Louis to explain that travel guide, and proximate to the Canadian border, justifying all those Ontario-registered cars.

There’s just one problem preventing us from including this fascinating city on the map – it’s never given a name! Johnny, buddy, if you’re reading this, we need your input!

ATLAS APOCRYPHA

Bedrock, home of The Flintstones’ modern Stone Age family, proved surprisingly easy to map. Following the franchise’s grand tradition of dinosaurs doing service as domestic appliances and heavy machinery, the 1994 live-action movie opens on a passenger-carrying pterodactyl descending into Bedrock, complete with a flight attendant informing passengers that to the left they’ll be able to see the Grand Canyon ... in about 15 million years! This not only gave us license to map the town to Arizona, but to also chart the fictional Bedrock River as a prehistoric forebear of the mighty Colorado.

Everyone knows of Thomas the Tank Engine, but not many people are aware of his sibling franchise, TUGS. Set during the Roaring Twenties, this short-lived television series followed the exploits of two rival tugboat fleets competing for business within the fictional Bigg City Port. Although a British production, the visual aesthetic of TUGS was entirely American; based on the prominence of upriver logging camps and the classically-transatlantic profiles of the ocean liners that make frequent calls at the port, we confidently chose to place Bigg City on the coast of Maine.

A less-fortunate vessel is the Antonia Graza, titular setting of the 2002 horror flick Ghost Ship. Inspired by the ill-fated SS Andrea Doria, this sumptuous Italian liner vanished in the mid-Atlantic in 1962, only to be discovered derelict off the Alaskan coast decades later, drifting dangerously close to an island chain named Bowers Bank.

Twin Peaks, Gravity Falls, Wayward Pines, The Goonies: The Pacific Northwest holds a special attraction for writers of the strange, though the adventures that take place here are typically less sinister than those found in the countries of King and Lovecraft. Maybe that has something to do with the many generations who’ve spent happy (or at least tolerable) childhood summers in locations such as Camp Campbell and Kamp Krusty, amidst wooded backhills where Bigfoot is said to roam.

The Hunger Games’ dystopian nation of Panem is ideally named, invoking both the Latin panem et circenses (bread and circuses) and a corruption of ‘Pan-American’. Appropriately, Panem’s 12 districts and dictatorial Capital are situated within a North America rendered almost unrecognizable by war and climatological disasters. The Capitol itself is located within the fortress-like ramparts of the Rockies, while heroine Katniss Everdeen’s home in District 12 is matched to the deep coal seams of the Appalachians.

SIGHT-SEEING HORROR SHOW

For your consideration, a budget tour through America’s premier horror destinations – storied locations just dying to make you feel welcome ...

Our first stop is Black Lake, Maine, a rural idyll celebrated for its wildlife. The aspiring angler is heartily advised to get out on the lake’s placid waters and see what surprises might rise to his bait! Just a few hours’ drive away, the questing holidaymaker discovers Derry, boasting a civic spirit guaranteed to put a smile on anyone’s face. You’ll feel free as a floating balloon. And as for your friends, why they’ll float too!

Just a hop across the border brings us to Friar, New Hampshire. The trailhead for countless adventurous hikers, Friar is a charming town with a deep and abiding love for classic cinema. Why not check out a screening of The Wizard of Oz and then find your own Yellow Brick Road up there in the hills?

Following our own road we continue towards secluded Innsmouth, Massachusetts, not far from where the darkly muttering waters of the Miskatonic reach the grey Atlantic. Situated in close proximity to historic Arkham, fishy Innsmouth is fiercely proud of its native culture and traditions, and would love nothing more than to share its blessings with you.

If your tastes run more towards sun and surf, then continue a short way south and take a great big bite out of Amity Island. Possessing pristine beaches and some of the most exciting swimming along the whole eastern seaboard, Amity is a patch of water you’ll safely find yourself going back into again and again.

Continuing into Connecticut, we arrive at the picture-perfect idyll of Stepford, a town that seems frozen in plastic. Smiling faces await you at every turn. Stepford is a particular must for married couples; husbands are welcomed to embrace the empowering fraternity of the sterling Men’s Association, and wives are encouraged to take up the town’s promise to make a new woman out of any newcomer.

In the backcountry of New Jersey, children can experience mystery and adventure at Camp Crystal Lake – voted America’s most infamous summer camp 13 years straight! Alternatively, those seeking to get back to nature and tell witchy stories around the campfire are advised to head for old Blair Township in Maryland, surrounded by woodlands you just have to get lost in!

Staying in Maryland, why not head down to Chesapeake Bay to sample the delights of Claridge, which throws an Independence Day second to none. Come for the party, stay for the fun, amidst celebrations so wild you’d swear there was something in the water!

A short jaunt north from Maryland brings us to McKinley, Pennsylvania, home of bone-shaking thrills and a final destination for adrenaline junkies out to cheat death one day at a time. Dare you ride the Devil’s Flight, pride of McKinley Park and easily the world’s most breakneck rollercoaster?

To experience nature at its most extreme we recommend heading inland towards the Appalachians, descending into the world-famous Boreham Caverns of North Carolina’s Chatooga National Park. If you desire physical thrills without claustrophobia, then try the fast-flowing watercourses of Georgia. We especially recommend the white-water delights of the Cahulawassee River, which promises any city slicker a guaranteed deliverance from the tedium of the urban jungle. Alternatively, if you’re down Texas way, why not take a dip in the shining waters of Lost River Lake? Recently redeveloped as a water park, the only thing you’ll have to worry about is an occasional nibble from the fish.

Continuing into the American west, the budget-minded tourist is directed to Perfection, Nevada. Located in the heart of a protected wildlife zone, Perfection is the native habitat of many rare and wonderful species. You might even get a face-to-face encounter with the amazing El Blanco, great white whale of the desert. Look for the tremors as he approaches.

Let’s push on to California, where affordable hostelries can be found on any highway. We highly recommend the Bates Motel, a family-run business just outside of Fairvale with year-round vacancies and a standard of customer service that is frankly insane. Down on the coast, Santa Clara may not possess the student spirit of Sunnydale, but has a teen culture second to none. The local nightlife is known to party it up with such vigour that you’d think the dead were rising! Lost boys (and girls) of all ages will be chomping at the bit to join this Never-Never Land where youth never dies. Nearby Antonio Bay presents a quieter getaway, an escape in time to misty shores and tall ships. As the evening fog unfurls across the town, breathe deep and embrace a peace you’ve never known.

Nothing beats the getaway idyll of a cabin in the woods, and up in Washington you’ll find plenty available at the Shelter Mountain Inn, complete with a media library that is sure to keep guests locked in an endless ring of entertainment. Alternatively, just a short ferry-ride out into the Puget Sound you’ll discover picturesque Moesko Island, whose haunting beauty has been captured on the tapes of countless home movies.

We’re well into the high mountains now as we enter Colorado, at last arriving at the triumphant summit of our tour, the Overlook Hotel. With over 217 237 rooms and a history that has seeped into the very foundation of the building, this shining destination is never short of bookings, yet always has a room available for the hopeful traveller.

Pleasant dreams ...

OPEN-WORLD ROCKSTARS

When it comes to fictional locations, nothing can beat the open-world video game in bringing imagined settings to visceral life. The undisputed masters of this medium are Rockstar Games, who have gifted the world such blockbuster franchises as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. As art holds a mirror up to life, these games show us the USA through a mirror darkly, re-sequencing the nation’s DNA into twistedly familiar chimeras. Thus a real metropolis such as New York might become Grand Theft Auto’s Liberty City, a cracked reflection that magnifies every blemish and vice present in the original source, quite literally in the case of Vice City, a neon-swirled analogue of Miami.

Within these games, the player is not just a passive viewer, but an active participant. Mount up on a stallion or strap in behind the wheel of a mustang. Run wild and rampant across the wilds of New Austin (Texas) and the highways of San Andreas (California). Chase dreams of fortune and freedom down the barrel of a gun, while chasing a bounty down the streets of St Denis (New Orleans). The allure is as real and vivid as the virtual worlds themselves ... and the deeper the temptation, the more vivid the social commentary strikes home. Because within these warped geometries, where everything becomes so much easier if we set aside society’s laws and mores, we might just perceive our own shadowed demons ...

For a full list of locations, see the location index.

ALEXANDRIA SAFE ZONE

The Walking Dead

VIRGINIA | TV/COMIC

Post-apocalyptic commune, built outside the real Alexandria. The refuges of Hilltop, Oceanside and the Kingdom (not shown) are all within a half-day’s travel. MAP here, C4

AMITY ISLAND

Jaws

BY PETER BENCHLEY | MASSACHUSETTS | NOVEL/FILM

Amity Island presents the perfect example of why authors and film-makers often create fictional locations rather than use a real setting. Imagine what might have happened to the tourist industry in, say, Cape Cod had the vicious shark attacks been placed there. The fictional town of Amity was sited on Long Island by novelist Peter Benchley. However, Spielberg’s film adaptation is now much better known, and here the setting is heavily based on (and filmed in) Martha’s Vineyard. MAP here, D5

AUTOBOT CITY

Transformers: The Movie

TENNESSEE | FILM

Autobot HQ on Earth in the 1986 animated movie. According to DVD special features, this fortress-city is located near Chattanooga, adjacent to the (real) Lookout Mountain, which is mentioned by name in the film. Presumably the Autobots thus needed death certificates from the state of Tennessee to officiate the passing of Optimus Prime, Wheeljack, Windcharger, and all the other characters killed off in the movie to make way for new toys! MAP here, A3

BARKLEY DAM

The Fugitive

ILLINOIS | FILM

Where Richard Kimble makes his famous dive. Lies on the (real) Route 13 just north of the fictional town of Doverville, which we have mapped to real-world Murphysboro. A southern Illinois location is supported by references in the film to the I-57 and I-24 interstates, and the fact that Kimble was being transported to the (also real) Menard Correctional Centre in nearby Randolph County. However, Illinois does not possess the mountainous scenery shown in this sequence, which was actually shot at the Cheoah Dam in North Carolina. MAP here, D4

BEACH CITY

Steven Universe

DELMARVA | TV

Coastal community situated on the Eastern Seaboard’s Delmarva peninsula, which in the show’s universe is a state in its own right. Not mapped is Beach City’s next-door neighbour Ocean Town, which can proudly boast to be ‘No Longer On Fire!’ MAP here, C4

BEDROCK

The Flintstones

ARIZONA | VARIOUS

At first blush, this classic cartoon’s Bedrock might seem unmappably vague. But in both the 1994 movie and the original series, Bedrock is within a short drive of the Grand Canyon (then a small trickle). Appropriately, a Flintstones Bedrock-themed theme park was for many years located just south of the Grand Canyon at the intersection of Routes 180 and 64. MAP here, C3

BENNE SEED ISLAND

WORKS OF MADELEINE L’ENGLE | SOUTH CAROLINA | NOVELS

One of several locations from the works of L’Engle, we were amused to find it in close proximity to the Ham Sandwich Islands from Pirates!. A benne seed is another name for a sesame seed, which might feature on such a sandwich. MAP here, C3

BIG THUNDER MOUNTAIN

BIG THUNDER MOUNTAIN RAILROAD | UTAH | ROLLERCOASTER

The original incarnation of this iconic Disney attraction took inspiration from the rock formations of Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park, while subsequent versions reference Monument Valley, which extends into neighbouring Arizona. Our solution maps Big Thunder Mountain just north of the Utah/Arizona border, allowing us to encircle it with the various old-western towns paired with the ride in the various Disney parks: Rainbow Ridge, Grizzly Gulch, Phantom Canyon, Thunder Mesa and Tumbleweed. MAP here, C3

BILLY THE MOUNTAIN

‘Billy the Mountain’

BY FRANK ZAPPA | CALIFORNIA | SONG

A mountain found between Rosamund and Gorman, with his lady love, a tree called Ethel. MAP here, A3/B3

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

Brokeback Mountain

WYOMING | SHORT STORY/FILM

Brokeback Mountain is in sheep-farming country some distance north of the nearest town, the equally-fictional Signal. Both are located in northern or central Wyoming. MAP here, D5

CACTUSVILLE

The Dandy

TEXAS | COMICS

Home of Desperate Dan, the world’s strongest cowboy and lover of cow pies! Beyond being situated in Texas, official canon gives us little to work with. However, since Dan’s adventures are based on classic Wild West conventions, we’ve mapped Cactusville to Bandera, TX, a town that proclaims itself ‘the Cowboy Capital of the World’ MAP here, B2

CAMP CAMPBELL

CAMP CAMP | WASHINGTON | WEB ANIMATION

This run-down summer camp lies in a forested, mountainous area adjacent to fictional Lake Lilac and the dormant volcano Sleepy Peak Peak (formerly ‘Wide Awake Peak’). The volcanism and evergreen forests suggested a Pacific Northwest location, and the nearest city’s resemblance to Seattle (complete with rotating-restaurant atop a Space Needle analogue) led to us mapping Camp Campbell in Washington, next-door to Dante’s Peak. Campe Diem! MAP here, B6

CARRUCAN PLANTATION

Django Unchained

MISSISSIPPI | FILM

Django’s ‘home’ plantation where he and his wife Broomhilda were both branded as runaway slaves and subsequently sold separately at a slave auction in the real town of Greenville. This might be a rough guide as to the planation’s location. It also means Django and his fellow chain-ganged slaves were forced to walk almost 1,500km (900 miles) by the time a chance encounter frees them in the vicinity of El Paso. MAP here, D2

DENTON

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

OHIO | FILM

Although named after Denton in Texas, clues in the film suggest an Ohio setting. A book based on the film includes a rough map, which appears to place Denton in south-eastern Ohio. MAP here, B4

DOROTHY GALE’S FARM

The Wizard of Oz

KANSAS | NOVEL/FILM

Everybody knows that Dorothy came from Kansas, but precisely where is difficult to pinpoint. L. Frank Baum is said to have been inspired by a tornado incident that happened in Irving, killing a girl called Dorothy Gale, so we’ve located the farm close to that town. MAP here, C4

DUCKBURG

Uncle Scrooge / Ducktales

CALISOTA | COMICS/TV

Where life is like a hurricane! The hometown of the various Disney Ducks lies on the Pacific coast in the fictional state of Calisota, occupying what would in reality be northern California. In recent years Duckburg has been codified as lying on the opposite side of fictional Audubon Bay to the metropolis of St. Canard, residence of the heroic Darkwing Duck. MAP here, A5

EAGLE STATE

Desperate Housewives

EASTERN USA | TV

Location undefined. Fictional Eagle State was founded in the same year as Colorado, but also lies adjacent to a large body of water, which that state lacks. The best fit may be Indiana, as the show references Purdue University, the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago O’Hare airport. MAP here, A4

FLAGSTONE

Once Upon a Time in the West

CALIFORNIA | FILM

Small western town named in reference to Flagstaff, Arizona. However, railroad tickets within the film display the following stations between Sante Fe and Flagstone: Albuquerque, Valencia, Prescott, Aztec Pass and Aubrey City. All are real places in New Mexico and Arizona, and Aubrey City (a ghost town now drowned under Lake Havasu) sat on the border with California. Since the railroad continues west to Flagstone, the town has to lie within California proper, and so we have mapped it midway between Lake Havasu and Los Angeles, the most likely destination for the railroad. MAP here, B3

GOBLU

OHIO | MAP

Two non-existent towns (see also Beatosu) inserted into an official map as a pun and a copyright trap, at least one of which was then adopted into the lore of GI Joe! MAP here, A5

GOTHAM CITY

DC COMICS | NEW JERSEY | COMIC

Batman’s home city is built on a cluster of fictional islands just off the coast of New Jersey. MAP here, C4

GRAVITY FALLS

Gravity Falls

OREGON | TV

Located in Oregon’s fictional Roadkill County. Although in-universe maps place Gravity Falls in arid eastern Oregon, the show itself displays the verdant pine forests and temperate climate that characterise the state’s geography west of the Cascade Mountains, so for this atlas we’ve mapped the town to the vicinity of real-world Marion Forks. MAP here, A5

HAWKINS

Stranger Things

INDIANA | TV

Set in fictional Roane County, Indiana, the location of Hawkins is never defined but the terrain is hilly, so we’ve gone for the south of the state. MAP here, A4

HEGEMAN

MARVEL COMICS | NEW YORK | COMICS

Town that is home to the prestigious (and fictional) State University, Alma Mater to Reed Richards and Doctor Doom! State is most likely an analogue to Cornell University, which would make Hegeman a parallel to Ithaca. MAP here, C5

HILL VALLEY

Back to the Future

CALIFORNIA | FILMS

In Northern California, 19km (12 miles) east of Grass Valley – A Nice Place to Live! The only other fictional location from the franchise is Eastwood Ravine, located about 6 or 8km (4 or 5 miles) WSW of Hill Valley. Originally Shonash Ravine and then Clayton Ravine, the consequences of time travel ultimately see it renamed ‘Eastwood Ravine’ in honour of Marty McFly’s 1885 alias, ‘Clint Eastwood’. MAP here, A4

HILLWOOD

Hey Arnold!

WASHINGTON | TV

Hillwood amalgamates features of several cities in the Pacific Northwest, where show creator Craig Barlett grew up. It straddles the estuary of a fictionalized version of the real Skookumchuck River, which would place Hillwood where the real city of Aberdeen, Washington stands, though Hillwood is a metropolis on the scale of Seattle or Portland, with aspects of New York thrown in. MAP here, A6

INNSMOUTH

Cthulhu Mythos

BY H.P. LOVECRAFT | MASSACHUSETTS | VARIOUS

One of many Lovecraft locations on the map. It plays a prominent role in the short story ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’. In the video game The Sinking City, the coastal town of Oakmont (not mapped) is located nearby, and has recently become an island after an inundation. The Simpsons has also parodied Innsmouth, with their own Fogburyport (a fictional version of a fictional town). MAP here, D5

KINGSTON FALLS

Gremlins

NEW YORK | FILM

Although filmed in California (using the same outdoor sets as ‘Hill Valley’ from Back to the Future), Kingston Falls is firmly in New York. We have few other clues to its location, other than a backdrop of low mountains. The town is subtly referenced in Explorers (also directed by Joe Dante), when it is mentioned in a newspaper headline. MAP here, C5

LAKE EDNA

KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN | KENTUCKY | ADVERTISING

An all-American small-town idyll created for a long-running KFC advertising campaign. We’ve mapped it to real-world Corbin, where the chain’s first restaurant opened. MAP here, A3

MAR-IAGO

Mac Trump

BY IAN DOESCHER AND JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA | FLORIDA | BOOK

This Shakesperian tragicomedy of the Trump Administration has peppered our atlas with many wonderful locations from the world of its imagined United Fiefdoms of America, some of which – such as Pennsylvanus and Connecticutia – had to be eliminated for lack of space. Lord MacTrump’s estate of Mar-Iago, however, must be among the most perfectly-recast among these, blending reality’s Mar-a-Lago with ‘honest’ Iago, trusted lieutenant of Othello and most duplicitous of all the Bard’s villains. MAP here, C1

MERCY

Song of Solomon

BY TONI MORRISON | MICHIGAN | NOVEL

The opening paragraphs establish that the fictional town of Mercy is on the shore of Lake Superior. We also learn that the town is at the junction of Routes 2 and 6 – not possible in real life as the two never intersect. We later learn that it has a train station, a suburb called Fairfield Heights, and is close to a lakeside retreat called Honoré. The name has also been used as a fictional western town in Doctor Who (‘A Town Called Mercy’), not mapped. MAP here, A6

METROPOLIS

DC COMICS | DELAWARE | COMICS

The chief city from Superman is well established at the north end of the Delaware Peninsula. MAP here, C4

MIDLANDS

MIDWEST | COLLEGE MOCK TRIAL COMPETITIONS

This fictional Midwestern state is where all American Mock Trial Association cases take place. MAP here, B5

MINNEHAHA

D2: The Mighty Ducks

MINNESOTA | FILM

In-between films, coach Gordon Bombay briefly played professional hockey for the Minnehaha Waves, a fictional minor league team based in and named for this fictional city. The film’s novelisation instead depicts Bombay playing for a team in Duluth, MN, so we chose to consider Minnehaha an analogue for Duluth. MAP here, C6

MOUNT SNUFFLEUPAGUS

Sesame Street

HAWAII | TV

On a trip to Hawaii, Big Bird and Aloysious ‘Snuffy’ Snuffleupagus search for and eventually find Mount Snuffleupagus (aka Mount Ihu Papa’a Lo’ihi Nui). The feature used as Mount Snuffleupagus is actually the Sleeping Giant on the island of Kauai. MAP here, C1

MOUSETON

Mickey Mouse

CALISOTA | VARIOUS

Mickey’s hometown, which, since the 1990s, has been placed close to, and within the same fictional state (Calisota) as Duckburg. It is a coastal city with a harbour. MAP here, A5

NIGHT VALE

Welcome to Night Vale

NEW MEXICO | PODCAST

Night Vale and its neighbour Desert Bluffs are located somewhere in the deserts of the American Southwest, ‘Where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while everyone pretends to sleep’. Based on these clues, we decided to match it to Roswell, New Mexico, a town which needs no introduction in matters of the strange. MAP here, A2

PONDAROSA RANCH

Bonanza

NEVADA | TV

The main setting of this iconic show has a well-established location between Lake Tahoe and Carson City. It stands within the ‘Pondarosa land’ which was said to be 1,000 sq. miles (2,600 sq. km). MAP here, A4

PROGRESS CITY

TEXAS | SCAM

Nonexistent town that featured in a 1910 land scam, where people were conned into buying lots in said town. Progress City was putatively sited in Brewster County, about 40 miles (64km) south of the town of Alpine, amidst the Santiago Mountains. MAP here, A2

RADIATOR SPRINGS

Cars

ARIZONA | FILM

Town situated on Route 66 in fictional Carburetor County. Production materials place it between Gallup (New Mexico) and Kingman (Arizona), hence eastern Arizona. An on-screen map shows that it’s just north of Interstate 40 (a bypass that sucked away all traffic from the town). MAP here, C3

RAGNAROK

New Captain Scarlet

ALASKA | TV

Small town (population 52) and abandoned coal mine situated in a remote Alaskan valley. In-universe it is situated within two-hours drive of a fictional bridge across the Bering Strait, so on the Seward Peninsula seemed the most likely location, in the York or Kigluaik Mountains. MAP here, A2

RICHVILLE

Richie Rich

INDIANA | COMICS

Hometown of Richie Rich. In the Macaulay Culkin movie, Rich Industries was based in Chicago, and the Forbes Fictional 15 appropriately shows the Rich family as living nearby in Indiana. Thus we mapped Richville to the northwest corner of Indiana, within commuting distance of Chicago while still remaining in the countryside. MAP here, A4

ROCKWELL

The Iron Giant

BY TED HUGHES | MAINE | NOVEL/FILM

Many of the locations in this atlas are speculative, but here we can nail things down precisely. The town’s coordinates are given in the film as 67.71972 degrees west, 44.50177 degrees north, which maps to a spot on the coast of Maine. MAP here, D6

SAN FRANSOKYO

Big Hero 6

CALIFORNIA | FILM/TV

Alternate history version of San Francisco that was heavily settled by Japanese immigrants who helped rebuild after the 1906 earthquake, resulting in the city evolving a unique east/west fusion aesthetic that eventually led to it being officially renamed to reflect this. The Muirahara Woods National Monument is located just north, a fictional version of Muir Woods. MAP here, A4

SHERMER

FILMS OF JOHN HUGHES | ILLINOIS | FILMS

Based on Northbrook, Chicago, this fictional town featured in many films including The Breakfast Club, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Uncle Buck, the Home Alone films, and the National Lampoon’s Vacation films.MAP here, D5

SHINING TIME

Thomas and the Magic Railroad

SHINING TIME STATION, PENNSYLVANIA | TV/FILM

Town set on the fictional Indian Valley Railroad. A location is never specified, but railroad scenes for the feature-length Thomas the Tank Engine movie were shot on the historic Strasburg Railroad in Pennsylvania. Mapping Shining Time to Strasburg also allowed us to place it along the route of the equally-fictional Allegheny & West Virginia Railroad, setting of runaway-train action-movie Unstoppable. Now there’s a crossover waiting to happen! MAP here, C4

SOUTH PARK

South Park

COLORADO | TV/FILM

Fictional town located in and named for the real geographic feature called South Park, a grassland flat in the Rocky Mountains, and partly based on Fairplay. Middle Park and North Park lie nearby. MAP here, D4

SOUTHFORK RANCH

Dallas

TEXAS | TV

The super-famous Southfork does actually exist in real life. It was originally built in the 1970s as Duncan Acres, but changed its name to Southfork Ranch on the back of the fame it got from the TV series. So it’s a slightly awkward inclusion, but one we feel is important, given the prominence of the show. MAP here, C2

SPRINGWOOD

A Nightmare on Elm Street

OHIO | FILMS

Director Wes Craven is from Cleveland and conceived of Freddy Kruger (name and all) growing up in that area. Our best guess is to position Springwood in that area and imagine it to be a fictional suburb of Cleveland. MAP here, B5

SUMMERVILLE

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

OKLAHOMA | FILM

We’re really on the ball with this one, as this book will be going to the presses before the film’s release. However, we can get a definite location thanks to the trailer, which includes a map placing Sumerville where the real town of Woodward, OK is located. MAP here, B3

SUNNYDALE

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

CALIFORNIA | TV

Located ‘near to Santa Barbara’ according to creator Joss Whedon. In-universe maps show Sunnydale to be at the ‘bend’ in the Californian coast with the Pacific to the south and west. Maps of the fictional ‘Sunnydale County’ actually show Santa Barbara County with the fictional name superimposed. MAP here, A3

TARA PLANTATION

Gone With the Wind

BY MARGARET MITCHELL | GEORGIA | NOVEL/FILM

The central plantation of this Hollywood classic is located near Jonesboro, south of Atlanta. Neighbouring fictional plantations, not shown, include Fairhill, MacIntosh, Mimosa, Pine Bloom, Slattery Farm, Twelve Oaks and Green Acres. MAP here, B3

THNEEDVILLE

The Lorax

NEW JERSEY | VARIOUS

In the original Doctor Suess book and animated special, directions to where Thneedville will be built in the 2012 film mention a notable clue: ‘Take the road to North Nitch. Turn left at Weehawken. Sharp right at South Stitch’. Weehawken is a real location in Hudson County, New Jersey, just opposite NYC, thus suggesting somewhere in north-central New Jersey. This is reinforced by the original edition of the book, which describes conditions for wildlife as being worse ‘up in Lake Erie’. MAP here, C5

TULLS POINT

Dad’s Army

MAINE | TV

Tulls Point might have been the American Walmington-on-Sea. The writers of British comedy Dad’s Army pitched a US version, to be set in the fictional coastal town of Tulls Point, Maine, with the characters reworked accordingly. Mainwairing would have become Cornelius Bishop, the pompous president of Tulls Bank, who believes town founder Thomas Tull was the real hero who warned that ‘the British are coming’ during the American Revolution and that Paul Revere unduly got all the publicity ‘because he had a fancy name’. Since Revere lived in Boston, this probably suggests a location in southern Maine. The town was not named in a filmed pilot, but it would be nice to finally do justice to the original script and put Tulls Point on the map. MAP here, D5

WESTVIEW

Wandavision

NEW JERSEY | TV

A town surrounded by a forcefield, and under the control of the Avenger Wanda Maximoff, whose residents are held captive as though characters in an ever-changing TV sitcom. It is located in New Jersey, probably to the north of the state to match up with the character’s home of Leonia (non-fictional) in the comics. Westview appears to be rural in character, so we’ve placed it outside the metropolitan areas. Note, this was the very last location to be added to this Atlas, while the show’s first series was still airing, so our placement will not reflect any revelations in the second half of that series. MAP here, C5

WILLOWS

Barbie

WISCONSIN | FASHION DOLL/TV/FILM

Home town of Barbie before she moved to Malibu. Pure speculation on this one, but clues can be found in the cartoon. Willows is on a river that runs north–south. There’s an extensive cave system under the town. We’re guessing that Willows is somewhere in the Western Upland region of Wisconsin, an area characterized by hills and caves in a state that is mostly glacial plains. The general area west of the town of Wisconsin Dells is a good match. MAP here, D5

XANADU

Citizen Kane

FLORIDA | FILM

Charles Foster Kane’s sumptuous mansion and estate of Xanadu is said to be the world’s largest private estate at 76 sq. miles (nearly 200 sq. km). It is situated on Florida’s Gulf Coast. MAP here, B2

n the media, Canada is often stereotyped as ‘America’s Hat’ (conversely making the USA ‘Canada’s shorts’). It is the friendly, polite, ice-hockey-obsessed counterpart to its more rambunctious neighbour. Unsurprising then that America and Canada, as depicted in fiction, both show commonalities.

Both share a romantic love for rural life and community, as embodied in Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. The little town in question is Mariposa, a loving parody of author Stephen Leacock’s Ontario home of Orillia. But romanticism must also adjust to pragmatism, and nothing demonstrates this like Canada’s most famous contribution to children’s literature, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. This coming-of-age saga about a young orphan on Prince Edward Island, learning to balance her dreams with down-to-Earth reality, in many ways reflects Canada’s own developing maturity, with Anne growing into adulthood and motherhood at the same time as her homeland grows to become a world power. Indeed, Anne’s stories are so beloved, and her world so well-realized, that we’ve had to split off Prince Edward Island into its own map to ensure the key places fit in (and, even then, we haven’t mapped everything)!

Like the USA, Canada also features a wide variety of landscapes in which to tell stories – mountains, coastlines, prairies, towns and cities. The difference here lies in population. Much of this region is sparsely inhabited, and we make no apology for the large chunks of blank space on this particular map. Among the more unusual inclusions are the Evergreen Forest, home of the anthropomorphic cast of The Racoons, another piece of Canadian children’s entertainment that is enjoyed worldwide. And then there’s Brobdingnag, situated off British Columbia, which Johnathan Swift’s ever-travelling Gulliver discovers to be inhabited by giants.

Perhaps that, then, is the best analogue of Canada as portrayed in this map, as a giant whose potential is yet to be fully seen. Let’s discover it together!

THE ULTIMATE REALMS OF THE BOREAL POLE

Ask any child where Santa lives and most will answer ‘the North Pole!’ Be it the cosy cottage industry depicted in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or the immense manufactory metropolis of The Polar Express, let all good children rest assured there is something up there – at least so far as your authors are concerned. In fact, the far north is so populated that Santa appears to have neighbours.

First, let’s resolve a matter of terrain. Reality is clear: there is no land at the pole. Santa must reside in a network of caves burrowed into the floating ice cap. But solid footing can be found in the fictive north, courtesy of Jules Verne’s The Adventures of Captain Hatteras. Its titular explorer discovered Queen’s Island, a volcanic islet situated right at the summit of the world, in the summer of 1861. Although Verne’s captain only described one mountain on the island, a volcano now named Mount Hatteras in his honour, the Arabian Nights suggests at least another peak, Mount Qaf (said to lie at the farthest point of the Earth, which is often equated with the North Pole). Elsewhere in this strangely crowded region we find another volcano, sulphurous Mount Yaanek, a peak of groaning lavas attributed to Edgar Allan Poe. Beneath lies the tunnel to the Blazing World, titular setting of Margaret Cavendish’s peculiar 1666 ‘sci-fi’ novel. Perhaps the same passage system leads to the ultimate stygian realm of Atvatabar – a subterranean landmass identical to North America, also reached via the North Pole.

All this tunnelling and geological activity must generate plenty of thermal energy, suggesting a source of heat and power, not just for Santa and his workshops, but for the other civilizations situated in these parts. We have accounts of The Island at the Top of the World’s Astragard, where the old Norse ways still reign. Meanwhile, the animators of Rankin/Bass presented us with the Island of Misfit Toys, ruled over by the leonine King Moonracer. Perhaps the king gave shelter to another misfit, Frankenstein’s monster, who was last seen drifting on the ice in these parts.

There is also the subterranean city of Glacia, guarded by Canada’s home-grown heroine, Nelvana of the Northern Lights. One of media history’s first-ever superheroines, Nelvana is noticeable for also being Inuit, a remarkable distinction for a character who made her debut in 1940. And she finds herself in good company, for a little way south lies the Fortress of Solitude, Arctic retreat of fiction’s most iconic hero, Superman!

GOLDEN DREAMS AT WHITE AGONY CREEK

In August of 1896, gold was discovered along Rabbit Creek, an event that transformed the face of this sleepy corner of the Yukon. Previously just a minor tributary of the mighty Klondike River, Rabbit Creek was quickly renamed Bonanza Creek, and over the following three years thousands of people would migrate into the region, stirred up by fantastic newspaper reports of gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!

Most who set out to strike it rich never completed the journey. The vast majority returned penniless. But enough met with success to inspire new waves of pilgrims. Boom towns such as Dawson City emerged overnight to serve the needs of the many dreamers. The Gold Rush ended as suddenly as it started, but this brief, madcap blaze for glory had established itself in the cultural landscape.