Where Is Superman’s Metropolis?

Where is Metropolis? Well, it depends on which Metropolis you’re asking about. In the comics, the answer might surprise you.

The exact location of Metropolis in the United States has never been canonically established. Although Superman creators Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel lived in Cleveland, they never established a canonical hometown for their iconic creation. During the Silver Age era, Metropolis was firmly established as a coastal city on the Eastern seaboard, but it was never established which U.S. State it was located in. On January 21, 1972, DC Comics declared Metropolis, Illinois as the “Hometown of Superman”.

I always thought that Gotham was near New York and Metropolis was in Chicago, but that’s not true at all. In fact, the two cities might be right across the bay from one another. So if Gotham is in New Jersey, then that makes Metropolis in Delaware.

That’s right, Delaware.

The Atlas of the DC Universe, created in 1990 for a Role-playing Game, included a rare map of the American in DC Comics. On the East Coast of this map were Gotham and (much to my surprise) Metropolis.  Take a look:

More recent comics have stated that Metropolis is actually in New York State. Personally, I’ve always loved this quote attributed to Frank Miller: “Metropolis is New York in the daytime; Gotham City is New York at night.”

In the television series Smallville, Metropolis is in the same state as Smallville, Clark Kent’s hometown. That’s right, it’s Kansas – which, next to Chicago, seems to make sense. Clark Kent is from the Midwest and it makes sense that he would move to a Midwestern City.

For a full map of DC America, check out The Secret Geography of the DC Universe: A Really Big Map over at iFanboy.

[some of the above content via Batman wiki]