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Mount Rushmore is an oddly popular location; perhaps because it's easy to imagine those presidential heads not being made up of solid rock but instead holding masses of secret rooms inside. It must get ''awfully'' crowded in there.
 
Note this trope does '''not''' cover bases in or under ''fictitious'' landmarks like ''[[The Fantastic Four]]''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Baxter Building or [[Fictional Counterpart|"almost" landmarks]] like "The Jeffersonian Institute" in ''[[Bones]]''. It also does not cover a fictional agency openly using a landmark as their base, such as UNIT operating out of the UN building in ''[[Doctor Who]]''.
 
Of course this makes a [[Monumental Battle]] all the more likely to happen if and when the series has the [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us|base attacked]].
 
Also see [[Weaponized Landmark]], where the landmark shoots back...
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'''Examples:'''
 
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== [[Anime]] ==
* In ''[[X 1999]]'', The Dragons of Heaven has their headquarters under the Diet Building, while the Dragons of Earth reside under the Tokyo Government offices.
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* The [[All-Star Squadron]] were based in the Trylon and Perisphere from the 1939 New York's World Fair. The Perisphere was their headquarters, and the Trylon was their [[Cool Garage]].
* In [[Peter David]]'s [[Spy Boy]], the "good" spy team (this troper can never remember if they were S.H.I.R.T.S or S.K.I.N.S) had their invisible headquarters suspended between the tops of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. (This got moved later, for obvious reasons.)
* In ''[[Invincible]]'' spinoff ''Guarding the Globe'', Cecil shows team leader Brit around a new Guardians of the Globe satellite base -- insidebase—inside Big Ben. Brit isn't sold on the idea, and Cecil suggests having the Sphinx hollowed out to make room for a base there, too, maybe with a jet hangar. Brit can't tell if he's joking or not. He wasn't; a couple of issues later it's revealed that this is exactly what he did
 
== [[Film]] ==
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* ''[[Neil Gaiman]]'s [[Neverwhere]]'' has an entire culture of "lost" people and things inhabiting the various stops of [[The London Underground]].
* Averted in ''[[Roswell]]''. For some reason, the government keeps alien spaceships in secret basements under convenience stores, and in movie studios.
* [[Buck Rogers in Thethe 25th Century]] had a second season episode in which Buck was accused of having helped foment the big nuclear war in the late 20th century. A device to visualize Buck's memories seems to confirm his guilt, but he keeps flashing on Mount Rushmore. Buck manages to get to Mount Rushmore and finds that the President had a secret bunker inside. {{spoiler|It turns out that Buck had been to the secret bunker where he was hypnotized to act as a double agent as part of a government operation to catch the conspirators who were trying to start the war.}}
* The Canary Wharf Tower one was done by the 90s remake of ''[[The Tomorrow People]]''. The reasoning was that the immortal Egyptian villain needed to hide a power-focusing pyramid in the middle of London, hence the pyramidal top of the tower.
 
=== ''[[Doctor Who]]'' ===
* The Torchwood Institute has had bases:
** In One Canada Square (a.k.a "Canary Wharf Tower") in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S2S28/E12 Army of Ghosts|Army of Ghosts]]"/"[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S2S28/E13 Doomsday|Doomsday]]".
** Under the Thames Barrier in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/2006 CS the Runaway Bride|The Runaway Bride]]", where it's [[Lampshaded]]:
{{quote|'''Donna:''' What, there's like a secret base hidden under a major London landmark?
'''The Doctor:''' I know, unheard of... }}
** Under Roald Dahl Plass, near the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, where The Hub is based in the [[Whoniverse]] spin-off ''[[Torchwood]]'' (and in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S3S29/E11 Utopia|Utopia]]", "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S4S30/E12 The Stolen Earth|The Stolen Earth]]" and "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S4S30/E13 Journeys End|Journey's End]]").
* UNIT had one: Under the Tower of London in "The Christmas Invasion". It beat their early place that had a conspicuous "Keep Out" sign.
* Various bad guys have based themselves in/under:
** Gatwick Airport (The Chameleons in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S4/E08 The Faceless Ones|The Faceless Ones]]")
** The Post Office Tower (WOTAN in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S3/E10 The War Machines|The War Machines]]")
** The London Eye (The Nestene Consciousness in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S1S27/E01 Rose|Rose]]")
** The Empire State Building (The Cult of Skaro in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S3S29/E04 Daleks in Manhattan|Daleks in Manhattan]]"/"[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S3S29/E05 Evolution of the Daleks|Evolution of the Daleks]]")
* They make an attempt to [[Justified Trope|justify]] many of these, explaining there is something important about the location or nature of the structure that they need. For example, the Torchwood Tower (Canary Wharf) exists because there was a rift high in the air, so they had to build a giant tower to reach it, The Hub's location was chosen due to its proximity with yet another rift and the Nestene Consciousness was using the London Eye as a giant transmitter to broadcast the signal controlling the Autons. In "Daleks in Manhattan", the Daleks attached Dalekanium strips to the top of the Empire State Building (which at the time was the tallest building on Earth) to kick-start a new race of hybrids with a solar flare.
* Canary Wharf is also the headquarters of the British time travelling military in an [[Alternate Universe|alternate 2006]] visited by the First Doctor in the [[Past Doctor Adventures]] novel ''The Time Travellers''. ''And'' the villain of the Sixth Doctor [[Virgin Missing Adventures|Missing Adventures]] novel ''Millennial Rites'' (for reasons broadly similar to the ''Tomorrow People'' villain).
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** This one is justified in game as a symbolic decision. UNATCO was founded in response to a terrorist attack that destroyed the Statue of Liberty.
* [[S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (series)|STALKER]] is all about the [[Hive Mind|terrible]] [[Instrumentality|secret]] at the center of the Zone of Exclusion, buried deep within the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
** [[Conspiracy Theorist|Conspiracy Theorists]]s might also get a shudder at the inclusion of the Duga-3 Over-The-Horizon-Radar array's inclusion, known in Number Station circles as the Russian Woodpecker, suspected [[Government Conspiracy|by some]] as being a [[Mind Control Device]] or [[Weather Control Machine]]. In the series, [[All Myths Are True|it does both.]]
*** Not to be confused with the Brain Scorcher from the first game, which is merely [[Fictional Counterpart|based on]] the Duga-3.
* In [[Evil Genius (video game)|Evil Genius]], a rival genius tried to build an underground lair inside the Great Wall of China, consisting of a single corridor.
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[[Category:Settings]]
[[Category:Home Base]]
[[Category:Landmarking the Hidden Base{{PAGENAME}}]]
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