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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"I've lived in Sunnydale a couple of years now. You know what I've never noticed before? This big honkin' castle."''|'''Riley''', ''[[
The geography of a fictional location becomes extremely flexible as more and more is added to it.
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** The same thing happened in its spinoff strip, ''Outland'', except in reverse. The Outland was originally supposed to be [[Another Dimension]] that featured wacky, ''[[Krazy Kat]]''-inspired landscapes. It quietly shifted to feature more normal surroundings, and even became a segment of Bloom County itself in the final strip.
* Speaking of ''[[Krazy Kat]]'', Coconino County even changes before your very eyes.
* ''[[
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* ''[[Nancy Drew]]'''s small hometown of River Heights seems to have whatever experts, businesses, universities, or other resources that are needed for any particular book.
** Ditto for the [[Hardy Boys]] and their hometown of Bayport, they've done a little better in more recent stories, ever since they [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?|pinned down where the two towns actually are.]] Now, they've made the two towns suburbs withing one-day's driving distance from Chicago (River Heights) and New York (Bayport.) Nowadays they just go visit, call, or e-mail when they need help.
* In the first ''[[Harry Potter (
** This is especially true in [[Harry Potter (
*** Second film: The sand pit around the Quidditch pitch is replaced with a trench. The hospital wing is changed.
*** Third film: The location of the Fat Lady's portrait is changed ([[The Other Darrin|as is the Fat Lady]]). Hagrid's hut is moved next to a newly-added giant sundial, which is accessed across a newly-added bridge attached to a newly-added courtyard at the foot of a newly-added [[Clock Tower]]. The hospital wing is moved to the top of this tower. The Whomping Willow position has changed: it's still very close to the woods, but now it's farther away from the main building and in a more mountainous area.
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* [[Stephen King]] does this often. A good many of his books are prefaced with the statement that parts of the city, state, or country that is featured are straight made up.
** Made very well explicit in ''[[The Dark Tower]]''. The geography and distances are stated in-story to actually change. This is probably our first clue that something is seriously wrong with the world.
* The [[Discworld]]. Ankh-Morpork is concisely plotted, but everywhere else can be pretty vague. Fortunately, any possible continuity errors were explained away in ''[[Discworld
* The [[
* Fantasia in ''[[The Neverending Story (
* In the author's notes for ''[[The Guns of the South]]'', [[Harry Turtledove]] admits that he took a degree of [[Artistic License]] for a scene where the Confederates look into Washington D.C. from atop a nearby hill and see buildings like the War Department and the White House.
== Live Action TV ==
* Sunnydale in ''[[
** It started off being described as a "one Starbucks town" and gradually acquired more buildings, an entire waterfront district, airport, train station, zoo, dam, a community [[College]] and a [[California University|campus of the University of California]].
** It also ''lost'' the entire beach/waterfront portions when the finale needed it to be landlocked.
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** Let's not forget that there are several ''uncharted islands'' off this beach. In Pennsylvania.
*** Does Lake Erie not exist in this particular TV universe?
* Craggy Island, in ''[[
** There is one constant: it has no west side. "It just broke loose during some bad weather and floated off."
* The size of Rutherford in ''[[
** I always thought it was Oberlin or Kent, and that the decent sized city was nearby Akron.
* Residents of Dog River, Saskatchewan on ''[[
* The island on ''[[
** The Losties not finding these things is at least moderately plausible, but Rousseau had been on the Island for ''16 years'' and claimed never to see a lot of the stuff she came across when with the Losties. Granted, she was mad, but hadn't she supposedly been obsessed with finding her daughter? And she never came across the death pylons set in the incredible obvious grassy plain area near the centre?
** Season six has the gigantic Temple be practically next to the barracks, judging by how quickly Kate and Sawyer can go from it to the latter.
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** It also has ''historical'' flexibility, with matching scenery. It was settled by the British in the early 1700s (''despite being in California''), and was mostly grassy fields. In the late 1800s, it was full of prospectors, cowboys, and other [[Wild West]] stereotypes, and was mostly barren desert.
** This has led to an interesting (if wrong) assumption by fans that the town ''is'' Los Angeles. ''Power Rangers'' takes place in an alternate universe, and since the British found California before the Spanish, the town was given an English name instead of a Spanish one.
* In ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'', a convenient orphanage pops up on the outskirts of Locksley right when the outlaws need to dispose of a group of kids. Did they even ''have'' orphanages in those days?
** They were mostly located in monasteries.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Smallville]]'' didn't do too badly, the titular town's geography remain stable, as did Metropolis. But it still cropped up from time to time; the Smallville Luthorcorp plant seemed to grow an entire research wing (on a waste treatment plant) and Metropolis was sometimes so close to Smallville you could see it from a not very tall windmill and sometimes far enough away even [[Super Speed]] took a while to get you there.
** On the other hand, the geography was not at all plausible for central Kansas, both for plot reasons and because [[California Doubling|they were actually in British Columbia]]. Metropolis acquired a harbor at some point (in Kansas!), and Smallville was full of whatever cliffs, valleys and rivers were required by this week's adventure. Also, the size of the town seemed to fluctuate to suit the plot--sometimes it was Dogpatch, and sometimes it was a fairly vibrant town. (Indeed, in season 5 it was explicitly a ''university'' town.) A road sign in the pilot episode lists a population of 45,001. That's not very big, but it's not tiny.
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== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Diablo]] II's'' multiplayer, the wilderness areas outside of towns change shape everytime one plays.
* The American localization of ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]'' apparently takes place in Los Angeles, California (Pacific time zone, near a movie studio). The sequel introduces the extremely Japanese Kurain Village, which is two hours away by train. The 3rd game introduces a snow covered mountain expanse with another extremely Japanese Kurain Temple located not much further beyond that. The reason, of course, is that it was an extremely Japanese game series before being localized. [[Fan Wank]] would indicate that there was simply a lot more cultural exchange between Japan and California in the series' [[Alternate Universe]], which is why no one bats an eye at people in Japanese clothing walking around in LA.
* The Mushroom Kingdom in the ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' series. Yeah, totally different in layout, features and just about everything in literally every single game and adaption, has possibly a more flexible geography situation than even Springfield in ''The Simpsons'', and more... stuff than many series have in the entire universe. Heck, even the [[Chaos Architecture|interiors]] totally change per game.
** Of course, the Mushroom Kingdom is an entire country, so it is conceivable that it could include all of those different areas. That doesn't excuse the architecture of buildings changing from game to game, though.
*** That one is plausibly justified by Bowser tending to wreck the place in every game, so it's not improbable that they simply change the architecture as they rebuild.
* ''[[
** Hyrule is a less extreme version of this trope, as while Hyrule's topography is unmistakably different in each game, the major landmarks and their positions relative to each other remain fairly consistent from ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** Oddly enough, the Wii version of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
* Partially averted in ''Super [[Metroid]]'', where the parts of the game that were featured in the NES prequel remain pretty much the same, but much of the geography had considerably changed.
** The changes can be handily explained by the original base having ''blown up''.
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== Web Animation ==
* Free Country USA in ''[[
** This is even parodied in ''Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People'', where Strong Bad can put other Free Country USA landmarks anywhere he wants on the map, and even rearrange them as he sees fit. His own house starts in the middle, but it's just as mobile. In the second game, he makes a new map by drawing on a Risk-like game map.
** Free Country USA usually appears to be about half a dozen buildings (three houses, the King of Town's castle, the Concession Stand, Coach Z's locker room) in the middle of nowhere, explicitly told not to have roads (or functioning cars), and yet the houses are decently sized, there's utilities, a postal service (and presumably a zip code), Internet access, a few in-story television shows and commercials filmed there, and so forth. [[Rule of Funny|Best not to think too hard about it]].
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[The Simpsons (
* The animated show ''[[
* ''[[
** Lampshaded in the season 4 episode "Clothes Minded", when Kim chases Drakken and Shego through a series of increasingly obscure local technical labs that she didn't know Middleton had.
* Parodied in the first episode of ''[[Clerks the Animated Series]]''; when Leonardo Leonardo is opening his new convenience store-slash-shopping mall only a few doors down from the Quick Stop AND his new skyscraper, both Dante and Randall point out how unlikely it is that they wouldn't have noticed such large buildings constructed around them; especially as Leonardo's skyscraper is the ''only skyscraper in the entire town''.
* ''[[
* Dimmsdale of ''[[
** ''Fairy Idol'' reveals Dimmsdale to be located in southern California, in an area east of Burbank but west of Death Valley. However, there is the fictional snow covered mountainous country of "Tibecuidore" that exists in Central America.
** Dimmsdale is in Imperial County, California, which is at the southeast corner of the state (east of San Diego County and south of Riverside County). Dimmsdale also seems big enough to have a population in the millions, whereas the real Imperial County has a population of slightly over 100,000.
* ''[[
** It was also usually portrayed as having only one police officer, Barbrady, early in the show. Later, when the plot required, they started using a police department of slightly less-inept cops in a nearby, apparently larger, city.
** Some things like the Wal-Mart are shown to be new additions - it could be [[Fan Wank|thought that the town is expanding as time goes on in the show]] ([[Status Quo Is God|while the kids have only advanced one grade in a decade, of course]]).
* Danville, and even more the Tri-State Area of ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' could be anywhere, but is shown as having mountains, a desert (literally right next to each other), at least three different museums, two malls, a lake, two separate rivers, and docks on the ocean. Not to mention the easy access to landmarks across the country.
* ''[[Teamo Supremo]]'' was constantly summoned by The Governor to save the state, but exactly which state the series takes place in is never revealed/stated.
* ''[[
* Ponyville in ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
** The most egregrious example would have to be the sudden [[Schizo-Tech|hydroelectric dam]], skyscraper construction site and deadly unguarded cliffs in "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well".
* Bikini Bottom from ''[[
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