How Gotham, Metropolis & Central City Connect
The geography of the DC Universe in The Flash movie requires explanation, particularly in regards to Gotham City, Metropolis and Central City.
Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for The Flash movie.The geography of the DC Universe and the cities of Gotham City, Metropolis and Central City depicted in The Flash movie require explanation. Unlike their Marvel Comics counterparts (who mostly live around New York City) the heroes of DC Comics largely inhabit a number of fictional locations. Most of these have the word "city" in their name, such as Coast City, Star City and Opal City. This can cause confusion in regard to where the different fictional cities are in relation to one another.
Complicating the issue is the fact that the comics are inconsistent on the locations of these cities, and different adaptations place the cities in different places. For instance, while the Superman comics typically place Metropolis on the Eastern coast of the United States, the television series Smallville and Superman and Lois both portray Metropolis as being in the state of Kansas, a few hours drive from the town of Smallville. Thankfully, the DCEU films offer some context clues as to their exact geography in The Flash movie.
Where Are Gotham, Metropolis & Central City Located Compared To The Real-Life U.S.
In the modern DC Comics, Metropolis is placed in the state of Delaware, facing out on Delaware Bay. Gotham City is located across the bay, in the state of New Jersey. Delaware Bay is a real world location, but there are no large cities comparable to Gotham City or Metropolis in the real world. The Gotham City and Metropolis of the DCEU were shown as being within sight of each other across a large bay in Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, but there was nothing to indicate precisely where they were located.
Confirmation came in a series of guide books for the fictional cities published by Time Out Group and Turkish Airlines as a tie-in to Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. The Gotham City guide makes reference to the city being founded in 1635 in what would become New Jersey. The Metropolis guide contains a similar note about the state of Delaware and how Metropolis was established in 1661.
Curiously, the old DCEU moviesoffer more direct confirmation of where Central City is located. A quick glance at Barry Allen's driver license confirms that Central City is located in the state of Ohio. This corresponds to The Flash comics of the 1970s, where writer/editor Bob Rozaki decreed (in answering a fan letter in The Flash #228) that Central City is located where Athens, Ohio stands in the real world.
How Far Central City Is From Gotham
Presuming that the Central City of the DCU is located in the same place as Athens, Ohio in the real world, viewers can calculate how far Barry Allen had to run in the opening action sequence of The Flash movie. Depending on the route he took, Barry traveled somewhere between 510-580 miles or 821-933 km. This presumes The Flash stayed on the roads to make navigation easier, although he could have cut 125 miles (201 km) off his journey by running in a straight line to Gotham City. The difference is negligible, however, given just how fast The Flash is in the DCU.
What The Populations of Gotham, Metropolis & Central City Are
Gauging the size of the DCU cities is far more difficult than determining their location. There is no hard population data regarding Metropolis or Gotham City in the DCU, though both are clearly large cities home to millions of people. Both cities are usually depicted as parallels of New York City, with legendary comic writer Dennis O'Neil describing both cities by saying "Gotham is Manhattan below Fourteenth Street at 3 a.m., November 28 in a cold year. Metropolis is Manhattan between Fourteenth and One Hundred and Tenth Streets on the brightest, sunniest July day of the year."
By that metric, both cities could be presumed to have populations equivalent to New York City's 8.468 million residents. This would be somewhat less than the official population of Metropolis in the comics, where it was said to house 11 million people in both Action Comics #601 and Who's Who In The DC Universe Vol. 2 #11. Gotham City is somewhat smaller at 10 million, but that number is based on Batman: The Animated Series and the 1966 Batman show, rather than the comics. There are no hard numbers for Gotham's population in the comics.
The population of Central City is even more elusive. Presuming the DCU Central City has the same population as Athens, Ohio, it would have 24,311 residents. This is far less than the Central City of the comics, which gave Central City's population as 290,000 in The Flash Vol. 2 #2. The 1990 Atlas of the DC Universe tripled this, claiming that Central City had 750,000 residents. The population jumped to 1,395,600 in The Flash Secret Files and Origins 2010 special. This incongruity was justified in The Flash Vol. 4 #1 in 2011, where CCPD Captain Darryl Fyre noted the city's population had tripled in the years since Barry Allen's resurrection.
These population numbers are far less than the Central City of the Arrowverse, which Dr. Caitlin Snow claimed had 14 million people in The Flash season 5 episode "The Death of Vibe." However, none of this gives any indication just how big the Central City of the DCU is. All that can be said for certain is that there would be a lot less people in Central City without The Flashto protect them, highlighting the importance of the events shown within The Flash movie.
