Places in The Dark Tower series

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The Dark Tower Portal

The Dark Tower series of novels, by Stephen King, contain references to numerous locations.^[1] Some of those locations are listed below.

1 All-world
2 Our world
3 Portals, magical places, and end-world places
4 Notes
5 References

[edit] All-world

All-World is the world known to contain the "Keystone Tower" in the Dark Tower series. It is the only world that contains the Dark Tower in its physical form; all others contain a representative of the Tower, such as a rose. From All-World, it is possible to actually enter the Dark Tower.^[2]

All-World is divided into three regions; In-World, Mid-World, and End-World. The following locations occur in All-World.

New Canaan The innermost barony, and home of Roland Deschain and the gunslingers. Center of the light and of civilization. Its capital city, and the capital of All-World itself, was Gilead.

Barony of Mejis is a Barony of In-World and the primary setting for Roland Deschain's account of part of his past in the novel Wizard and Glass. Mejis is located roughly 1000 "wheels" east of Gilead on the coast of the Clean Sea. The county seat of Mejis is the town of Hambry. The economy of Mejis is based primarily on horse ranching and fishing.

Jericho Hill is approximately 500 miles north of Mejis, on the edge of what was known in Mejis as the Clean Sea. This is the site of the final battle between the gunslingers and John Farson's faction. It's also the site where Cuthbert Allgood died while blowing the Horn of Eld.

Delain Another barony of In-World featured in King's novel The Eyes of the Dragon. This country was ruled by puppets of the evil wizard Flagg for many years.

Blaine's route is the route a schizophrenic monorail named Blaine the Mono takes between a city named Lud and a version of Topeka, Kansas. In the book The Waste Lands, Roland and his companions board Blaine to escape Lud, eventually vying for their lives in a life-or-death riddling contest with Blaine. Blaine's route takes the travelers through Candleton, Rilea, The Falls of the Hounds, and Dasherville on its way to Topeka.^[3]

Calla Bryn Sturgis is a fictional town located in an area of Mid-World called the Borderlands. It is neighbor to several other towns whose names begin with the word "Calla". Calla Bryn Sturgis is the primary setting for the novel Wolves of the Calla, in which a regiment of green-cloaked "wolves" visit the city once every generation and steal children.^[4]

Lud is a fictional city in Stephen King's Dark Tower series and mentioned in his Rose Madder. In The Waste Lands, the book's protagonists travel from Lud to an alternate reality version of Topeka, Kansas via a supersonic monorail. Lud resembles New York City in many ways, most notably by having a version of the George Washington Bridge. This "GWB" spans a massive river canyon that protected the city from marauders. The book explains that the bridge and the rest of the city have been in disrepair for at least five hundred years.^[5]

The Dark Tower The Axel on which all worlds spin. In many ways it is more a concept then a physical building. As Roland enters and finds objects related to his own life one can assume that its structure(internally at least) is subjective to those who enter it. It is also notable that as it exists in Endworld, that it is quite literally on the outer edge of reality (i.e., if one were to stand with their back to the tower and walk away from it in a straight line they would eventually run into it again at the other end of the world as well); and existing at all points in that outer edge as well, meaning there is no singular path to the tower, that in fact, if followed far enough, ALL roads lead to it eventually.

[edit] Our world

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The following locations exist in what is referred to by King as "Keystone Earth" and later in the series as "Keystone Rose"; this Earth is very similar to the "real world" of the readers and functions as a sort of cornerstone to the multiverse of the Dark Tower. It also holds the distinction of being the only universe where time "only runs forward", thus preventing the chronological shifts characters could take advantage of in other universes.

New York City is the setting for many events in The Dark Tower series, and appears in many forms besides its "Keystone Rose" incarnation (the main characters Jake Chambers, Susannah Dean, and Eddie Dean all come from various time periods -"whens" in the novels- in near-identical variations of New York). Keystone New York is home to a rose that is said to be our world's representation of The Dark Tower itself.^[6]

Maine is where members of Roland's Ka-tet go in the later part of the series. Here they meet a fictionalized version of Stephen King.

[edit] Portals, magical places, and end-world places

The following locations occur outside of the normal realms inhabited by humans in The Dark Tower series. Characters can only reach some of them using magic or man-made teleportation doors.

Castle Discordia is first mentioned in the book Wolves of the Calla as a mystical location where Susannah Dean and her possessor Mia interact. In Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower, we learn that the castle is a physical place that stands on the edge of a realm named Thunderclap. The castle contains 595 doors leading to other locations and worlds, one of which Susannah and her companions use a number of times.^[7]

Devar-Toi is a minimum-security prison located in Thunderclap, an area of End-World. A campus-like complex, Devar-Toi is also known as Algul Siento or "Blue Heaven." The complex houses numerous Breakers, psychics of various types employed by The Crimson King in using their powers to attack and destroy the Beams that tie all of existence together.

Keystone Earth is one of only two "unique" worlds in the Dark Tower series (the other being All-world). Like All-world, the only worlds where changes made are permanent and can't be unmade (time flows in only one direction on both). This world is home to the rose, which they say is not merely the representative of the tower here, but is elsewhere referred to as the guardian of the Bear-Turtle Beam. At the end of the series it was being protected by the Tet Corporation, which Roland's ka-tet created in 1977, using Odetta Holmes's fortune as heiress to the Holmes Dental Corporation.^[8]

Thunderclap is a desolate, sparsely-populated realm first described in Wizard and Glass as being part of End-World and the Borderlands. In Wolves of the Calla, we learn that the marauding wolves come from somewhere in Thunderclap, later named in the book The Dark Tower as the Devar-Toi.^[9]