In DC Comics each of the heroes have their own home cities that they defend. However, those comic book cities don’t always have a direct real-life analog prompting fans to try to figure out where in the world their favorite heroes are, literally.
This is especially true for the CW’s Arrowverse. With Arrow and The Flash being very connected — members of Team Flash and Team Arrow have popped up in each other’s respective cities multiple times over the series, and not just in crossover events — fans have been trying to figure out from the beginning where exactly Star City is located.
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Over the course of the previous five episodes, Arrow has given lots of clues and nods to where the home of Oliver Queen is located but putting a pin in the map and declaring it Star City may be a little more challenging than expected. And when you factor in the various places Oliver Queen has called home in comic books then there are even more possible locations where Star City could be. But between the West Coast, the Great Lakes, and even the Eastern Seaboard, and all of the ties to other cities in the Arrowverse where is Star City located?
We’ve looked at all the clues and have a few ideas – and Star City probably isn’t located where you think it is.
Central City
One of the key clues to figuring out where Star City is located in the Arrowverse relies on figuring out where Central City is on The Flash.
On The Flash, Central City is the neighbor to Keystone City. The two locations are separated by a small body of water and are far enough apart that they each have their own individual problems, but close enough that Barry can run there in, well, a Flash. While Central City’s specific location has never been explained, the name “Central City” lead some fans to believe that Central City is in Missouri, specifically Kansas City which has its own “twin” city just across the Missouri River in Kansas.
However, the name “Keystone” is very closely associated with the state of Pennsylvania which means that with Keystone City being Central City’s twin, The Flash could be taking place in either Pennsylvania or New Jersey.
Getting an idea of where Central City is important because of how closely tied to Star City is in the Arrowverse. The two cities are shown to be far enough apart that Star City’s issues don’t spill over into Central City, but they are close enough that travel by train in a reasonable amount of time as the two cities are sometimes said to be around 600 miles apart.
That means if Central City is in Missouri, Star City could be in North Dakota or Ohio while if Central City is, in fact, in Pennsylvania, Star City might be located in Georgia or the Chicago area.
Clues on ‘Arrow’
Of course, clues on Arrow itself have to be taken into consideration as well.
We know that Star City is a port city as the Queen’s Gambit was able to sail away from then-Starling City. And as the boat sank near Lian Yu — an island presumed to be located somewhere in the Pacific — the boat likely sailed west. Fans on Reddit’s Arrow community also noticed a few other clues over the seasons, such as the map showing the nuke targets in season three placing Star City in the upper Midwest and coordinates in the first season episode ‘Unifinished Business’ leading to an area near Seattle’s Pioneer Square. One fan also noticed that the zip codes for Star City in season five all had Seattle prefixes.
There are other clues that would indicate that Star City is somewhere on the West Coast, too. Felicity mentions in one episode that she moved over 600 miles from Las Vegas to Star City which would place Oliver Queen’s hometown near Portland, Oregon.
The Final Verdict
(Photo: The CW)
Simply by following a combination of comic book history and various clues on Arrow, the most likely location for Star City is probably somewhere between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. It would give the city a location in keeping with Green Arrow’s print history while also fitting in with the multiple West Coast clues provided in the series.
Placing Star City on the West Coast does require a little bit of suspension of disbelief when it comes to the distance between Central City and Star City, but the Flash is a speedster after all, and we’ve seen him pull of some amazing feats of transport — not to mention that this season Barry is even faster than ever. Location compared to Central City aside, putting Star City on the West Coast just makes sense.
However, it might be as Reddit user theapplefour theorizes: “it moves around depending on who write the episode.”
Arrow airs Thursdays at 9/8c on The CW.
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