Where Is Batman's Gotham City Located In The Pages Of DC Comics?

One of Stan Lee's many innovations as Marvel Comics editor-in-chief was setting the publisher's superhero stories in the real-world location of New York City. That greater sense of reality and interconnectivity within the comics helped create a sense of community among the fans (which Lee purposefully cultivated). You can track the trend of creators and fans trying to fit superheroes into the "real world" back to Lee's marvelous NYC. Compare this to the older heroes of DC Comics, who had their adventures in places like Gotham City, Star City, etc. These characters had made up homes because they were so obviously figures who could never exist in our world; writing a superhero comic is like telling a fairy tale. 

Note how Superman's home, Metropolis, is literally named for the word meaning "large city." But again, a lot of comic fans really like to know where the fabulistic cities of DC are, if only for internal consistency. That's especially true with the most famous one: Batman's Gotham City.

So, canonical answer: Gotham City is in the state of New Jersey. (Maybe there's a reason "The Penguin" takes so much from "The Sopranos.") In "The Amazing World of DC Comics" issue #14 (published in 1977), writer Mark Gruenwald writes an encyclopedic history of the Justice League. In the character bio section, Gruenwald explicitly labels Gotham City as being in New Jersey. (Gruenwald also listed Metropolis as being in Delaware in this issue, which has likewise been accepted as canon.) New Jersey makes sufficient sense as the site of Gotham; it's not New York itself, but close enough. Since then, Gotham is usually, implicitly written as being in New Jersey — but not always.

In the animated "Young Justice," a map of the U.S. East Coast shows that Gotham is in southern Connecticut, around where Bridgeport, CT, is in real life.

Warner Bros. Animation

Like New Jersey, Connecticut is an East Coast state that borders New York, so it fits the profile Gotham should have. As a born and raised Connecticut native, Batman and co. being fellow Nutmeggers obviously appealed to me. But that's the point, isn't it? Gotham City is supposed to be anywhere and nowhere, like Springfield in "The Simpsons," so that anyone can see their own hometown in it.

DC has resisted the assumption that Gotham City is a replacement for New York City; the real New York City has even appeared in several DC Comics, so it and Gotham exist simultaneously in the DC Universe. But if there's one real city Gotham allegorizes, it's NYC. 

"Gotham" is a nickname for New York City, coined by writer Washington Irving in the 1800s. When Batman debuted in 1939, DC Comics (then National Comics) was also based in NYC, and so that's where Batman's credited creators Bill Finger and Bob Kane lived. In fact, "Detective Comics" #33 (the first depiction of Batman's often retold origin story) explicitly labeled his hometown as Manhattan. It was only a year into publication, in 1940's "Batman" #4, when Batman was relocated to the fictional Gotham City. 

In "The Steranko History of Comics" by writer Jim Steranko, Bill Finger recounted:

"Originally I was going to call Gotham City 'Civic City.' Then I tried 'Capital City,' then 'Coast City.' Then, I flipped through the phone book and spotted the name Gotham Jewelers and said 'that's it, Gotham City.' We didn't call it New York because we wanted anybody in any city to identify with it. Of course, Gotham is another name for New York."

Later Batman writers have also based Gotham on New York. In his novelization of "Batman: Knightfall," Dennis O'Neil describes the urban aura of Batman as reflecting our collective fear that cities are filled with evil hiding in the shadows. He concludes that "Batman's Gotham City is Manhattan below Fourteenth Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November."

A quote often attributed to Frank Miller (writer of "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Batman: Year One") suggests that "Metropolis is New York in the daytime; Gotham City is New York at night." Miller has talked about how he was mugged while living in NYC, which colored both his Batman comics and his earlier run on "Daredevil" (which, being a Marvel series, was literally set in New York). "[Being mugged] made me, at least for a little while, as angry as [Batman] was," Miller told CBR in 2016.

Gotham City may be patterned after an East Coast Metropolis, but the 1960s "Batman" TV series took it to the West; the show was filmed throughout southern California in the Los Angeles area.

Then, director Tim Burton took Batman across the pond. The 1989 "Batman" film was filmed on sets built at Pinewood Studios in England. Wayne Manor's exterior was actually Knebworth House, a stately home in the Hertfordshire countryside. Burton's sequel, "Batman Returns," though, was filmed at the Warner Bros. Studios in California. Director Joel Schumacher filmed some of "Batman Forever" in New York (the new Wayne Manor exterior was actually the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture in Long Island, which was later reused for the 2014 TV series "Gotham"), but much of "Forever" and its sequel "Batman & Robin" were still shot on California sound stages.

Zack Snyder's "Batman V Superman," though, was shot in Detroit, with the Michigan city representing both Gotham and Metropolis. Snyder's film presented Gotham and Metropolis as twin cities, separated by a bay — implicitly pinning them as being in New Jersey and Delaware, respectively, just like the comics.

Christopher Nolan's goal with his Batman movies was to ground the hero in the real world. That meant eschewing the fantastic Gothic sets that Burton and Schumacher used. Instead, Nolan filmed his "Dark Knight" trilogy in real cities, reinforcing verisimilitude and the idea that this Batman could actually exist in the real world — because we're watching him move through it in every scene.

Though "Batman Begins" was mostly filmed across England, Nolan shot exteriors of the city not only in London, but New York and Chicago as well. Chicago then became the primary filming location for "The Dark Knight." Nolan had spent portions of his childhood in Chicago, and felt it had the right look for his Gotham City: "I think the architecture of the city is really brilliant, fantastic. That gave us an incredible amount of variety that's used as the background for the film."

"The Dark Knight Rises" moved on from Chicago, instead filming in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, New York City, and Newark, New Jersey (with some exteriors in London and Glasgow, Scotland). Richard Moskal, then director of the Chicago Film Office, told the Chicago Tribune in 2011 that he believed the filmmakers wanted to stay "fresh" by not reusing Chicago in the third film. Still, since "The Dark Knight" is the most famous of Nolan's Batman films, Chicago remains synonymous with Gotham for many. One person who approved of the connection was late "Batman" comic artist Neal Adams, who said: 

"Chicago has had a reputation for a certain kind of criminality. Batman is in this kind of corrupt city and trying to turn it back into a better place. One of the things about Chicago is Chicago has alleys (which are virtually nonexistent in New York). Back alleys, that's where Batman fights all the bad guys."

Matt Reeves' "The Batman" takes cues from Nolan, anchoring the Dark Knight in reality and going a step further with a Batman (Robert Pattinson) who is truly unbalanced. Similar to "Batman Begins," "The Batman" took flight and shot its Gotham City in the UK. Specifically, "The Batman" was primarily filmed in Liverpool, but with add-ons from London, Glasgow, and Chicago too.  According to "The Batman" production designer James Chinlund, the filmmakers chose Liverpool because its naturally Gothic architecture evoked the history they wanted to suggest for Gotham City: an old and "decaying" metropolis, but one that's had periods of renewal.

The tower that Batman dives off of in his wingsuit to escape the Gotham police? That's actually Liverpool's Royal Liver Building. Chinlund recounted to the BBC:

"I started looking around that area and it started slowly revealing itself, how rich that world is and what an amazing city Liverpool is in terms of [how] it follows the story. It had this incredible boom period, and then it's fallen on hard times over the years, and the patina that existed in the buildings, and obviously the heavy weather... it all just fitted like a glove."

Spin-off TV series "The Penguin" was filmed in New York, but briefly-glimpsed driver's licenses in the show still label Reeves' Gotham as being located in New Jersey. Cristin Milioti (Sofia Falcone) is a native daughter of Jersey, and with the accent that Colin Farrell puts on as Oz, Gotham couldn't be anywhere else but the Garden State.