Notes on the Geography of the Arrowverse, Vol. 1

Opening Remarks

A little while ago I made a project out of documenting everything there is to know about the geography of the Arrowverse. Every map, GPS coordinate, or address that flashed on the screen must be recorded. Every offhand remark and newspaper article of relevance must be transcribed. These facts are all compiled into a very long spreadsheet, which also tracks each entry's credibility, both in- and out-of-universe. Suffices to say, this is a very big project.

I was making pretty good progress for a while, and the first couple of seasons of Arrow flew by pretty fast. Year 3 gets harder, though. Arrow season 3 is quite a bit less fun to watch than season 2, and I have to split my attention with The Flash and Constantine. It's near-ish the end of that year where I've stalled. I'll pick it up again eventually I'm sure, but for the time being I might as well share the more interesting findings I've made so far.

Without further ado, here are some very obscure observations about the geography of the Arrowverse. (I've saved the best for last, by the way.)

Star City

Let's start with an obvious question: where in the world is dear old Star City? Let's start broad and narrow it down.

• It's fairly self-evident that Star City is somewhere on the West Coast of America (boat trip to China, sun setting over ocean, etc.).
• A plane ticket at A1x20 19:46 indicates a commercial flight from Starling City to Shanghai as taking ~12 hours. This is consistent with flights out of the Northwest U.S. Any flight east or south of Seattle takes longer.
• A newspaper article at A2x18 2:22 discusses Iron Heights Prison in the context of "prison overpopulation in the Northwest." (The article also mentions Bludhaven and Keystone as the sites of nearby prisons. Bludhaven makes sense; Keystone does not.)
• At A2x10 15:17, Maya Resik's medical bill puts Starling City in a state with postal code NE. In real life, there is no state with postal code NE.
• An SCPD letterhead at A1x15 16:07 explicitly places Starling in Washington state (postal code WA).

• It snows very rarely in Star City. The only instance I've recorded so far is A1x09 41:36 where it snows around Christmas-time. This is consistent with the climate of the Seattle area, where it is likely to snow lightly for just a few days every year.
• A screen at a Starling train station at A2x21 37:44 lists Seattle and Spokane as the departure points of trains arriving in Starling.

That all paints a pretty clear picture: Star City is somewhere on the Pacific coast of Washington state.

I have come across two maps, so far, that specifically mark the location of Star City in the world. The first, at 3x02 26:08, places Starling City in pretty much exactly the same location as real-life Seattle. The other, at 3x09 11:35, puts Starling somewhere in Iowa. Yeah... way off. That map is dubious anyways, though, since it marks real-life cities like San Francisco, Vancouver, New York, Washington D.C., and Nairobi hundreds of miles away from their true locations.

Central City

And Central City, then? Where could that be?

• A CCPD letterhead at F1x09 15:14 places Central City in Washington State (postal code WA). The letterhead is clearly reused from the SCPD one shown above, with only very minor modification. This seems clearly wrong. Someone screwed up (in a very minor way that no one but me has probably ever noticed or cared about).
• A Central City Circuit Court search warrant at F1x09 20:18 places Central City in Missouri (postal code MO). This makes way more sense.
• At 1x12 32:59, a convict tips off Barry about a robbery: "It's a TDK and money transfer truck coming in from the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis." This places Central City in the St. Louis zone of the Eighth Federal Reserve District, which encompasses the eastern half of Missouri and the southern half of Illinois.

• At 1x04 17:42, a museum guide says, "It wasn't until 1852, when the Transcontinental Railroad laid their tracks through this thriving cattle town...." In reality, the Transcontinental Railroad didn't begin construction until 1863, and its terminus was Omaha, Nebraska (so it didn't go through Missouri). However, the railroad network that connects to Omaha was indeed built in Missouri in the 1850s, so this all kinda checks out.

Voila! There's 3 independent pieces of evidence corroborating that Central City is in eastern Missouri. We also know that there's a big river running through Central City (it shows up on all the maps and in establishing shots of the city). Perhaps it's the Mississippi? Could be. Or one of its tributaries.

Star City--Central City

So far so good. But do these locations for Star City and Central City reconcile with each other?

• A train station sign at A2x22 7:55 indicates that a non-stop train ride from Starling to Central City takes 2 hours and 10 minutes.
• At F1x01 31:24, Oliver says to Barry, "Something tells me you didn't just run 600 miles to say hi to a friend."

In reality, the distance from Seattle, Washington to St. Louis, Missouri is over 2000 miles. The fastest trains in the world don't average higher than 150 mph (and there are certainly no high-speed trains crossing the U.S.). So... these don't really check out.

I'm sure I will find a lot more pieces of evidence in this category over the rest of the seasons. For example, Barry's running Oliver and Diggle to intercept Cayden James in "The Devil's Greatest Trick" implies that he is able to run from Central City to Star City very fast... like in a matter of minutes.

Blue Valley

Blue Valley finally got mentioned overtly in Flash season 4 (as a place where Wally spent some time and apparently fought Starro!). The city was referenced way before that, though in Arrow season 2.

At A2x05 3:20, if you crank the volume way up, you can just barely make out the basketball commentator on Oliver's TV: "Blue Valley is really having problems containing the Rockets." The Rockets are, of course, Starling City's basketball team.

Markovia

Markovia first gets name-dropped in A1x03. As Oliver reads Deadshot's INTERPOL file, he tells us in voice-over: "He's killed all over the world. Chicago, Markovia, Corto Maltese." As he says this right around 7:14, he pulls up a map on his computer screen--part of Deadshot's file, no doubt. The map has a couple dozen markers distributed around the globe, presumably marking the locations of Deadshot's known activity. Indeed, there is a mark at Chicago. There are 2 marks in South America, but, unfortunately, neither one looks like it would be the island of Corto Maltese. There are 3 marks in Europe that could be Markovia.

It's worth noting that this map graphic was frequently reused on the Arrowcave computers over the next couple years. However, never again do we see someone actually open the map. My interpretation is that Team Arrow just kept Deadshot's file open in the background a lot... for some reason. (The truth is, this graphic was never meant to be associated with Deadshot specifically. It is just a generic map to fill the screen.)

So we need a little more information before we can choose between the 3 European marks on Deadshot's activity map. That info comes in A2x16 when the Suicide Squad visits Markovia. Throughout the episode (at 14:33, for example), the German language is used on Markovian signs. Now that we know Markovia is a German-speaking country, we can narrow its probable location to the part of Europe where German is spoken. So, I grabbed the map below from Wikipedia.

Now, combining this with our previous knowledge, it is clear that Markovia must be the third European mark from the left on INTERPOL's map. That would put the country right around the vertex of Austria, Slovenia, and Italy. Eureka!

One more tidbit about Markovia: at A2x16 17:26, we get a very fleeting glimpse of a Markovian license plate. For one, the plate reveals that Markovia is a member of the EU, and that its United Nations-assigned international license plate country code is "M" (in real life, "M" is for Malta). There's also a tiny rendering of a Markovian flag on the plate! As far as I know, that flag is never visible anywhere else. The flag's colors (green and yellow) are clearly inspired by Geo-Force's classic costume from the comics. Obscure trivia!

Smallville?!? (on Earth-1)

This one's really very fun. I don't know of anyone else on the Internet who has spotted this, either. At A2x21 37:44, Thea is trying to get out of Starling City by train (Deathstroke's Siege rather ruins her day). For just a handful of frames, you can make out a few words on a screen listing arriving trains. Up above, I pointed out that Seattle and Spokane are listed. Central City is also listed. But there is one more, very mysterious city name. Take a look:

If you squint you eyes just right, I'm 80% sure it says "Smallville." Yup, Smallville. Weird, right? Smallville's supposed to be in Kansas, not Washington state. And there's no way that a train running from Kansas to Washington would be labeled by the name of a tiny little town like Smallville. So just a nonsense Easter egg, I guess. And to this day, Smallville has never again been referenced on Earth-1 (as far as I know). So this is the one and only indication of Smallville's existence on Earth-1. Cool!

Closing Remarks

Anyways, I have no idea if anyone cares about all this. I for one, though, find these geographical Easter eggs quite fun. In theory, the long-term goal of my project is to reconcile all the contradictory facts I collect and synthesize the data into some maps and stuff. That's really far away, though. It may never happen. For now, it's just little stuff like I've listed above that makes the project fun.

So what do you think? What are your favorite little-known Easter eggs in the Arrowverse? Let me know in the comments.

Hope you enjoyed!
Phillip

Legends of Tomorrow's 1-Frame Easter Eggs

Update on 6/14/2019:
Just finished combing through and documenting season 4. Unfortunately, the trickle of fun Easter eggs seems to be mostly depleted at this point. There was one very cool secret in 4x03, though: Tritonis!

Update on 8/12/2020:
Now season 5 is complete as well. No new Easter eggs this time around. I guess they have run out of comics locations.

Opening Remarks

So I have no idea if this is common knowledge or not, but there are a bunch of Easter eggs in pretty much every episode of Legends of Tomorrow. You know the text graphic they use in the bottom-left of the screen to establish a location and year? I'm talking about the blue text that flickers for a few frames then settles on the correct information. Well, it seems obvious in hindsight, but I never wondered until recently just what was hidden in those intervening frames, imperceptible to the naked eye.

Turns out, in that time, a few (normally 8) wrong locations and years are flashed on the screen for a single frame each. Most of those locations are real-life cities (like San Diego), some are fictional locations from the Arrowverse (like Central City), but a few are fictional locations that are not otherwise known to exist in the Arrowverse at all. Aha! Easter eggs!

At this point I set myself upon the (somewhat laborious) task of documenting all of these titles. I catalogued every location and year flashed on the screen, along with its timestamp. If you care, you can view the spreadsheet here. (I did my best, but it's highly likely that I missed a couple.) Yellow rows indicate fictional locations already known to exist on Earth-1 of the Arrowverse. Orange rows indicate fictional locations not otherwise known to exist on Earth-1.

Canonicity

This was all pretty exciting to me, since it seems to be a huge new source of geographical data about the Arrowverse (which is a particular interest obsession of mine). But is it really justified to treat these titles as canon? What can we actually conclude from them? Unfortunately, the short answer is: probably not much.

At the very least, it would be nice to be able to conclude that the listed locations do definitely exist on Earth-1. The simplest way to do so would be to connect the titles with some in-universe authority. For example, it is tempting to treat them as a representation of the Waverider's navigational system. However, the titles are often used totally independently of the Waverider, for example to establish the location of some opening scene. The only rational conclusion is that the titles don't represent anything particular in the world of the show; they exist only in our world and for our benefit.

Still though, titles existing out-of-universe should carry some canonical authority. Obviously, the final, "correct" time and location are to be taken as canon--even more canon than in-universe information, in fact, since the title is provided by a presumably omniscient and reliable narrator. That information is encoded by our knowledge of the language of TV: when a date and location are shown in the bottom of our screen for a few seconds, the implicit narrator is telling us "this takes place here." But what does it mean when a title is flashed for only one frame? Is the implicit narrator telling us: "this place exists somewhere in this fictional world"? Well, maybe. It's entirely ambiguous.

By the way, it's worth asking just who is responsible for these captions in the first place. Unlike the final, correct location, these Easter eggs are certainly not established by the scripts. It's possible that the pool of locations to flicker through comes from the writers' room, but it's equally possible that whoever's making the effect is just deciding on their own. Thus, even if we deem the captions to be an indication that the locations do exist, that information would deserve a lesser canonical authority than any information deriving from the scripts.

I know I'm writing way too much here, but there is just one more thing before we get to the good stuff: to what extent ought we to associate the locations with the dates that accompany them? Specifically, I was curious if the titles can be interpreted as an indication that the specified city exists in the specified time. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the titles clearly make an effort to use more "ancient" cities when going back far in time. For example, names like Rome, Timbuktu, and Maya City flicker by as the dates rewind from the present day to the origin story of Vandal Savage in Ancient Egypt, 1700 B.C.

Unfortunately, I don't think we can even make that conclusion. Wikipedia tells me that Timbuktu was first settled in the 5th century B.C., but its caption shows 1120 B.C. Opal City (which is in the U.S.), is shown with a date of 233 (A.D.). These counterexamples (there are more) demonstrate that we cannot place any real meaning on the juxtaposition of a particular place and time. It's a shame, too, because Nanda Parbat is given a year of 601 in episode L3x01, which predates the supposed founding of the League in 1103, as attested by Nyssa al Ghul in A6x16.

Fictional Locations Already Known to Exist

Phew, sorry about that! Have you stuck with me? You probably skipped most of that last section, right? I don't blame you. But don't worry: this is where it gets (slightly more) interesting!

Let's start with the easy stuff. Here's a list of fictional locations used in the titles that are already known to exist on Earth-1. In other words, these captions are unsurprising and don't give us any new information about the Arrowverse.

• Star City
• Central City
• Hub City (NOTE: This title was first used in L1x01, 2 weeks before Hub City was first mentioned in A4x12.)
• Coast City
• Opal City
• Midway City
• St. Roch
• Bludhaven
• Markovia
• Keystone City
• Nanda Parbat
• Ivy Town
• Gotham City (NOTE: This title was first used in L1x04, 21 months before Gotham City was first mentioned in A6x02).
• Harmony Falls
• Kasnia Conglomerate
• Salvation
• Koshmar
• Calvin City
• JSA Headquarters
• Liberty, Colorado
• Camelot
• Zambesi
• Themyscria
• Upswipz HQ
• Time Bureau
• Camp Ogawa, Maine
• Iron Heights Penitentary
• Central City High

Fictional Locations NOT Otherwise Known to Exist

Okay, so that wasn't super exciting, right? This one's a little better. These locations warrant a little explanation, so I've attached a couple sentences to each one.

River City
The home of the bizarre and little-known superhero "Odd Man" in DC comics. A really very obscure location in comics lore. First appearance in 1978. 

Starfish Island
The island Oliver Queen is stranded on in the comics, though it is only called by that name in one story in 1959. In 2007, Green Arrow: Year One positioned it as one of the Fiji Islands. The island is shaped like a star, hence its name. So is this a separate island from Lian Yu in the Arrowverse?

Dakota City
The setting of comics created by Milestone Media and published by DC Comics. Since 2008, the Milestone world has been integrated into the mainstream DC multiverse. Static is probably the best-known Milestone character. Dakota City is in the American Midwest. 

Happy Harbor
The town where the Justice League established their underground "Secret Sanctuary." First appearing in the League's first appearance in 1960, the Secret Sanctuary was the League's first headquarters, before moving to the Watchtower satellite many years later. Happy Harbor is in Rhode Island.

National City
The city was originally created for the Supergirl TV show as Kara's home city (on Earth-38, of course). It has never been mentioned to exist on Earth-1 of the Arrowverse. Unsurprisingly, National City has been integrated into the comics starting in 2016.

Civic City
A location used in some Golden Age DC comics. The city was home to one of the JSA's headquarters, among other things. First appeared in 1941. 

Steel City
The city was created for the Teen Titans TV show in 2005 as an industrial East Coast city. Steel City never made it into the mainstream DC comics.

Gateway City
A DC comics city of moderate importance, located in California. First appearing in 1966, Gateway City is perhaps best known as the home of Wonder Woman for a few years in the 90s. The city is clearly modeled on San Francisco, right down to the bridge. (San Francisco definitely does exist on Earth-1, by the way.) 

Metropolis
The home of Superman since 1939, of course! Metropolis exists on Earth-38, but it has never been mentioned on Earth-1, much like National City.

Arkham City
This is a pretty weird one. Not even a real city, Arkham City is a giant prison that served as the setting for 2011's Batman: Arkham City video game (which is totally awesome, by the way). Arkham City has never been referenced outside of those Arkham games' continuity (except for this reference, maybe!).

Emerald City
Another weird one! In the DC comics, it's a magical city on the Moon created by Green Lantern Alan Scott's Starheart (first appearance 2010). Of course, this could also be a reference to The Wizard of Oz. Either way, pretty damn weird. 

Paradise Island
Ooh, this is a fun one! Paradise Island was the name DC used for Wonder Woman's home starting from her debut in 1941. The name "Themyscira" has become preferred since it was first used in 1987, but the two are often used interchangeably. Perhaps the same is true in the Arrowverse, and "Paradise Island" is just another name for Themyscira. Notably, this title was first used in L1x12, 18 months before Themyscira actually appeared in L3x06. Its only other use was L3x03. 

Coral City
The setting of the short-lived DC comics series The Movement, which ran in 2013 and 2014. Supposedly exists in mainstream DC continuity, but has never been referenced outside of The Movement. 

Edge City
A city that only ever appeared in 3 episodes of Smallville, starting in 2003. It never made it to the mainstream DC continuity. On the show, it's located near Smallville and Metropolis in Kansas.

Fabletown
A locale from the DC-published Fables line, which is not set in the mainstream DC multiverse. First appearing in 2002, Fabletown is meant to be a neighborhood in Manhattan where fairy tale characters live. Yes, really. And they published this comic for like 10 years. Go figure. 

New Carthage
First appearing in 1969, New Carthage is a college town in the state of New York where Dick Grayson attends Hudson University. As you might guess, it's meant to be situated on the Hudson River. However, Hudson U. is located in Central City in the Arrowverse; it's where Professor Stein's F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. project took place.

Fawcett City
A city created in 1985 to serve as the home for characters DC acquired from the defunct Fawcett Comics. So, for example, Captain Marvel lives here. Fawcett City is located somewhere in the American Midwest. 

Capitol City
A city appearing in the Golden Age as the home of Green Lantern Alan Scott. The character was quickly shifted to Gotham City, and Capitol City has not been used much in the comics since. It's located (you guessed it!) somewhere in the American Midwest. Yup, I guess everybody really loved the Midwest back in the 40s, huh? And, yes, it's definitely Capitol, not Capital. Don't ask me why.

Tritonis
One of the two major cities of Atlantis, which plays a big role in Aquaman lore. Unlike the capital city of Poseidonis, which is inhabited by human-looking Atlanteans, Tritonis is the home of freaky fish-monster people and mermaids. In other words, Tritonis is awesome!

Closing Remarks

Wow. This was all really asinine, huh? What was the point again? I don't remember. I'm having flashbacks to that piece on the continuity of The Flash '90.

Anyways, one cool thing did come out of all that scanning through Legends episodes: I found this fun little Easter egg!

Notice the cup? That's right: "GCJITTERS." Now where could that be.... Ooh! I know! Gotham City! I guess the Darkhs' little undisclosed-location hideout in L3x13 was in Gotham all along. So that's vaguely cool. It'd be a lot cooler if Gotham's existence on Earth-1 wasn't confirmed months earlier in A6x02. I'm not the first to find this Easter egg, either, but you know, whatever.

Hope you enjoyed!
Phillip