Where in the World is LEGO City?

[Sir E Fullner]

LEGO City, a city constantly being expanded and re-built. Everyone who has heard of LEGO has probably heard of LEGO City. However, where in the world is LEGO City? To find out, let's take a look at a few clues spread across LEGO City sets.

Disclaimer: These hypotheses are based plainly on LEGO City sets, not any of the video games or offshoots. They are not endorsed by the LEGO company in any way, shape, or form.

Clue 1: Farms

This is not technically the City, however it was released under the LEGO City theme. Looking at the farms, we can see the most common commodities farmed include wheat, hay, pigs, and dairy cattle. While you can raise the livestock almost anywhere, wheat and hay require certain areas of the globe for growth. Wheat for instance, is usually grown on the North American Great Plains, Great European Plain, Plains of Argentina, Southern Russia, Northern India, Northeast China, and certain parts of Australia. By looking at these regions, we can further pinpoint LEGO City's location.

Clue 2: Civilian habits, clothing, and vehicles

Another way to find the location of a culture is to look at its habits and customs. The male minifigures of LEGO City have short-cut hair, businessmen are clean-shaven, workers have some facial hair, and everyone seems to dress quite conservatively. Women also dress conservatively, with hair done up in ponytail, bobcut, or flowing around shoulders. Minifigure clothing is western in style, with suits, buttoned shirts, sweaters, polos, T-shirts, and long trousers. Most of the restaurants serve pizza, along with a few coffee shops serving croissants. In set 60026 Town Square, we see a statue of a medieval knight. The vehicles driven are based off of very modern cars and trucks, and the driver's seat is on the left side. The trains are based off of European designs, like the High-Speed ICE, IC, and freight locomotives. Therefore, we can further conclude that LEGO City is located somewhere on the European continent.

Clue 3: Currency

Sets in the LEGO City range do not feature much currency, however, the only paper currency featured is a 100 currency bill. Coins have values of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 40, and 50. One can further hypothesize that LEGO City is located in a European country with high inflation on currency. Europeans countries with such currency include the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Norway, and Russia.

So, in the end, we can hypothesize that LEGO City is located in either the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Norway, or Russia. Do you have any other clues as to LEGO City's location? Please share them in the comments below.

Always entertaining, always inspiring, always:

[Zerobricks]

Thats a good bit of a detective work right there. I'd say its probably denmark since most if not all models are designed there.

[ronenson]

Judging by the dimensions of the minifig, I'd say it's more likely to be a country with a lot of obese people.

Furthermore, every second person is a cop, surely that must be a hint as well.

[Steph 104th]

Not to mention every third person is wearing the same shirt.

[Venunder]

You kind of forgot this could also include North America.

However there are plenty of Beaches, Light houses and Harbours so that excludes any landlocked countries.

Leaving North America, Norway, Denmark and Russia .

There are also Forest Rangers and wild bears which rules out Denmark?

Leaving Norway, Russia and North America.

There is also a space program.

Which brings us to North America and possibly Russia.

Edited November 2, 2014 by Venunder

[lightningtiger]

Well I would say the original Legotown 1978 through to the early 1990's would be Denmark judging by the Shell service stations, the postal and train services logos looking very Danish.

But now with Lego City I'm not so sure......you might say a world city since many of Lego's designers are from around the world and they bring elements of their homelands into the Lego City world.

Like any other Lego theme it's what the builder sees it as to them.......it's called imagination.

[LAKAbricks]

In the 80s, the trains generaly had the DB-logo (at the time Deutsche Bundesbahn) on their fronts... So maybe LEGO City in reality is called LEGO Stadt? And then, on the other hand, if Paradisa belongs to the Greater LEGO City Area, then we have got a lot of palms. So maybe not Germany after all.

Edited November 2, 2014 by laka

[LEGO Guy Bri]

To me LEGO City is a cross between the US and Europe by the style of vehicles, trains included. Pretty vague I know, but look at the tow truck and flatbed. The tow truck is huge and has a long nose front, typical of the majority of our trucks here in the US. Modeled off of Peterbuilt. The flat bed has a van like front end from what I see of European design. Out flatbed car carriers have front end very similar to our larger trucks. Most European trucks seem to be flat heads while US has long nose looking less aerodynamic. Same goes with the train engines. 2010's Cargo Train > European, 2014's Cargo Train > US. Also, the US doesn't have and high speed train lines. Then there are the license plates, European style IMO

[AirborneAFOL]

Cleve detective work and fun question.

My boring answer is I always assumed Western Europe, where Lego is based and presumably still draws a majority of its marketing/design team staff, or United States, where I suspect Lego may make the most revenue in terms of a sales market. Both of those are merely educated guesses though - and as a Yank myself I'll readily admit that even if Lego sells more in the US, this site has me thoroughly convinced western Europe has vastly superior builders.

You really need to break it down by subtheme though, since some lines seem to lean one way or another. I'd say the predominance of "row house" type modular buildings, abundance bike-related shops / mass transit, and lack of "Cheap Beer & Guns" stores, leans much more European than US. However, the (generally lame) <$50 sets do seem to have a slightly US slant to them given that most vehicles strike me as looking more like a shoddy Ford than a sleek BMW...

[Lind Whisperer]

It really depends on what sets/media you're looking at. I personally believe that there are several different LEGO Cities, each representing a specific location.

Clutch Powers: Cape Canaveral area, based upon both the spaceship facilities, and the way that there is a huge body of water, if not an ocean, on at least one side of the Headquarters building(Which itself lends to the Canaveral theory).

The only biggest detraction from this theory is during Clutch Powers: A 4D Adventure. Unfortunately, the only way to see this film is by actually going to a park, something I am not able to do at the moment(If anyone knows of an alternate way to see it, I would be extremely grateful!), but at

, a long road up a hill can be seen that doesn't quite match up with the Florida landscape. I personally chalk this up to there being slight liberties in location design, similar to the other entries.

LEGO City: Undercover: San Francisco. It can only be San Francisco. A prison island in the bay, a huge red bridge, and even a LEGO Chinatown.

The presence of a Statue of Liberty might seem to indicate New York, and the setting can at times come off more like Miami, but overall, San Francisco wins by a long shot.

LEGO Island, LEGO Island II(to some extent), and LEGO Island III: A place filled with California surfing bros, its own airport, a small population and completely surrounded by enough water so that the mainland isn't visible? Sounds to me like Santa Catalina.

World City: With its worn-down grey tones, brightened with as few colors as possible and an overall tone of industry, there are only so many places it can be. The overall tone of the sets feels somewhere in between Chicago and Detroit, but the architecture of the police station and the color of their dark blue uniforms gives off more of a New York City vibe. All three cities have Coast Guards and trains, so until I find more evidence of one or the other, that's as specific as I can get.

All other LEGO: Sets prior to around 1997 seem to likely be set somewhere in Europe, although exactly where is hard to determine. Quite likely Denmark, with a few sets from other countries(for instance, one Wheatabix promotion was an English-style pair of houses that shared a wall). They could probably be divided up by architecture into individual countries, but being a U.S. resident, I'm not quite sure where I'd start doing that.

[mmcclelland]

Let's not forget the postal service which uses red uniforms and a yellow colour scheme (at least the last postal sets, which were a few years ago) so that would apparently rule out the US who use blue, Britain who use Red and Ireland who use Green.

And then there's the matter of unarmed police and criminals who wear stripey jumpsuits which I have never seen outside Buggs Bunny cartoons

[glendo]

Lego city was originally denmark, then the greater europe area, now it's firmly in 'Murica.

[finnbricker]

And then there's the matter of unarmed police and criminals who wear stripey jumpsuits which I have never seen outside Buggs Bunny cartoons

I was very surprised and amused when I happened to walk past the local prison in Nassau, Bahamas. The prisoners were in the prison yard, separated from the sidewalk only by a see-through wired fence. And they were all wearing striped shirts exactly like the ones in Lego City. Pants, too! Their hats, however, didn't resemble the Lego beanies. I never knew they actually wear striped prison suits in a real prison somewhere on earth!

[dr_spock]

The classic town 1980s fire engines have blue lights which say somewhere in Europe like Germany. I changed all mine to red lights to match North America.

[Captain Braunsfeld]

If you take the example of 4207 City Garage you will find that the cars are typically short, like in many European countries - in contrast to the stretch limo approach in North America.

As minifigures do not drive on the left-hand side they must reside in continental Europe.

The cars do not have dashcams, Russia is excluded. So, this shortens Sir E Fullner's list.

Norway? I can't recall any fjord set.

Denmark? I would not bet on it. I've been there many times and (if I remember correctly) they are very friendly (minifigs usually smile) but they do not have palm trees, which we often find in the sets.

Minifigs usually smile - this rules out Hungary, as people are currently upset about coming internet tax.

The winner is: Czech Republic!

(Who would have thought...)

:laugh:

[AirborneAFOL]

If you take the example of 4207 City Garage you will find that

As minifigures do not drive on the left-hand side they must reside in continental Europe.

Exceptional observation re: vehicles. The older 4-wide cars clearly point to Europe - whereas the more recent shift to larger, 6-wide vehicles supports the earlier suggestion Lego has increasingly evolved to US-centric designs.

Since the modern 6-wides, I feel like there's a few with a non-centered steering wheel, and its on the left (or am I wrong on that?), so that rules out England in terms of the modern era.

[Prah]

The winner is: Czech Republic!

(Who would have thought...)

:laugh:

One problem, Czech Republic does not have a coast :P

[Moebius118]

People, there are directories in the city train station sets that should clearly determine the location of this fabled Lego City right?

Right?

Seeing how that image was Googled off Eurobricks, this topic may have occurred before.

[alois]

The city in the middle of all the above cities would be Nuremberg in Bavaria.

[NickRussia79]

I have a few suggestions in this regard. In sets with ambulance painted "Star of Life" is characteristic only for the US and some European countries. This refutes the version of Russia, because we have the Red Cross instead of the Star of Life. So as a form of forest police in 2012 is similar to the shape of the US Sherrif. So as a form of police in 2014 is a bit like Seattle police officers. In LEGO CITY: Undercover, the city is a blend of San Francisco, New York and Miami, but in rural areas there is a castle, which is not present in America. The game is clearly a taxi base on 1950-1980 Checker Marathon, which was a taxi US, but fire trucks resemble the European model.

My conclusion: Either the United States or Western Europe.

Sorry my bad English.

Edited November 4, 2014 by NickRussia79