The Dark Knight Where is Gotham City Located? (read before bashing)

[Amazing Afroman]

Gotham in NJ works fine for me. It only makes sense that if NJ was home to one of the world's biggest cities, it'd be a total dump (no offense to anyone from NJ).

I live in Jersey and let's face it, alot of our cities are dumps. Unfortunately that's all that alot of people think of.

Gotham's location has indeed fluctuated over time. Often in the comics it has been outright said that it is in NJ, in other instances it has been implided that it's in NY or elsewhere.

In part it depends on the media as well. As has been noted in TAS and Forever there is a quasi Statue of Liberty, which most people associate with NYC (it's actually in New Jersey by the way). In Batman: Subzero the maps that are used to figure out where the oil rig is so that they can rescue Barbara clearly states Gotham City, NY.

Where Gotham lies in the Nolan universe is up for speculation but if they are going by modern DC standard, its in NJ.

 

[aTOMx]

In the early days of the comic book, Gothman City literally WAS New York City. Batman moved "Through the dark of a New York night..."

Apparently, DC asked Kane to switch it to a fictional city, and either he or Bill Finger came up with Gotham City. There is a Gotham, NY-- and of course Manhattan has always been called Gotham.

I think Frank Miller described Gotham City as "New York with hell erupting through the sidewalks".

In the 40's Superman radio series, I'm not sure that Gotham City is ever referred to directly. However, Bruce Wayne lives in a nice suburb just outside Metropolis, which seems to be New York City (where it was made). Certainly it has a Brooklyn, judging from the accents of several characters, its ports, and Amusment Park acessable by subway.

(BTW on the radio show Alfred has a cockney accent, like Michael Cain, only phoney. Robin [Ronald Liss] sometimes sounds like a authentic street-wise kid from the Bowery.) From the radio show you'd think Gotham & Metropolis were both parts of New York.
Then again, Jersey's just across the river...