Discworld-y cities

[AgnesOgg]

I recently visited Brügge and Prague, and was amused by how much those cities remind me of the idea I`ve got in my head of Ankh-Morpork.
Does anyone else have places, cities, countries that remind them of the Discworld?

(Amsterdam is a good one, it is built on silt... )

[Cheery]

Ankh-Morpork definatly looks like (or sounds like) London in the 16th, 17th and 18th century. I wrote about old London in school and all I thought was "Ankh-Morpork". (Nearly wrote it once )

Uberwald sounds awfully lot like the alp-area or something like that. Just a lot more wild and a lot bigger.
I think it's a mix between Germany, Transilvania and maybe Switzerland. I'm not sure though, but there are a few clues. First of all, the Uberwaldian language is the same as German (the name says it and so it would be actually called Überwald, "Overforest" if you translate it. Sounds pretty dumb. ). The Vampires and Werewolves there definatly say "Transilvania". And Switzerland's got alot of mountains, but that could also be Transilvania again.

[Trish]

I live in the foothills of the Appalachians.
Can you say "Ramtops?"

[Tonyblack]

Ankh-Morpork definatly looks like (or sounds like) London in the 16th, 17th and 18th century. I wrote about old London in school and all I thought was "Ankh-Morpork". (Nearly wrote it once )

Uberwald sounds awfully lot like the alp-area or something like that. Just a lot more wild and a lot bigger.
I think it's a mix between Germany, Transilvania and maybe Switzerland. I'm not sure though, but there are a few clues. First of all, the Uberwaldian language is the same as German (the name says it and so it would be actually called Überwald, "Overforest" if you translate it. Sounds pretty dumb. ). The Vampires and Werewolves there definatly say "Transilvania". And Switzerland's got alot of mountains, but that could also be Transilvania again.

Yes, Überwald translates as 'Over Forest' but so does Transylvania.

Slovenia is just like Bonk

[Cheery]

Yes, Überwald translates as 'Over Forest' but so does Transylvania.

It does? Didn't know that.

[mspanners]

Yes, Bridgwater Somerset is part of Ankh-Morpork.... The Shades...!

[Jan Van Quirm]

Ankh-Morpork is the epitome of sleaze and so it equates with many similar place - here's how I tried to describe the Big Wahooni in aesthetic terms to some friends who don't know much about Discworld

In essence Ankh-Morpork is a little like a medieval version of 1960s New York, Buda and Pest in the late 1800s, the London of Charles Dickens and 1920s Chicago or Berlin. It is in short a very interesting place to live.

[bikkit]

I think it's a mix between Germany, Transilvania and maybe Switzerland.

I seem to remember something about Uberwaldian dolls. They were obviously based of russian dolls.

[kakaze]

The idea of Ankh-Morpork being built on top of Ankh-Morpork is based on Seattle, Washington.

Speidel ultimately did find the remains of the city consumed in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, a town founded on mostly soggy tideflats whose streets would, whenever the rains came, bloat deep enough with mud to consume dogs and small children.

After the fire, which destroyed some 25 square blocks of mostly wooden buildings in the heart of Seattle, it was unanimously decided that all new construction must be of stone or brick masonry. The city also decided to rise up from the muck in which its original streets lay.
It was this decision that created the Underground: The city built retaining walls, eight feet or higher, on either side of the old streets, filled in the space between the walls, and paved over the fill to effectively raise the streets, making them one story higher than the old sidewalks that still ran alongside them.

Building owners, eager to capitalize on an 1890s economic boom, quickly rebuilt on the old, low, muddy ground where they had been before, unmindful of the fact that their first floor display windows and lobbies soon would become basements. Eventually, sidewalks bridged the gap between the new streets and the second story of buildings, leaving hollow tunnels (as high as 35 feet in some places) between the old and new sidewalks, and creating the passageways of today’s Underground.

http://www.undergroundtour.com/about/history.html

[AgnesOgg]

Lancre has to me a somewhat Scandinavian feel about it, but then I think is only natural that one finds comparisons with what you know and are familiar with

[Jan Van Quirm]

Lancre has to me a somewhat Scandinavian feel about it, but then I think is only natural that one finds comparisons with what you know and are familiar with

'Tis all those steep gorges and lack of flat surfaces - definitely rugged mountain country of the cruel and unusual denomination is Lancre

[Tonyblack]

Let's not forget the Lancre Army Knife which seems to be a parody of the Swiss Arny Knife.

As we have seen from trying to draw perfect mirrors from Interesting Time - bits of them fit, but Discworld is made up of lots of bits of Earth.

[Dotsie]

As we have seen from trying to draw perfect mirrors from Interesting Time - bits of them fit, but Discworld is made up of lots of bits of Earth.

True. Lancre seems to me to be a little bit of Lancashire stuck in Switzerland.

[Bickaxe]

The old parts of Derry.

its a wall citied for a start and I believe (but not 100% sure) that its walls have never been breached by an attacking force (when it was completely walled that is, the most recent force was the British army and even they didn't control it all)

its a nice city too (just ignore the barbed wire and painted kerb stones)

[superfurryandy]

The idea of Ankh-Morpork being built on top of Ankh-Morpork is based on Seattle, Washington.

That can be said of a lot of cities, though - there's a lot of old London underground, many many tributaries to the Thames that have long been built over, the most famous perhaps being the River Fleet.