Springfield is the primary fictional setting of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons and related media. It is an average-sized, fictional suburban city in an unspecified, fictional state of the United States. The city's geography, surroundings, and layout are flexible, often changing to accommodate the plot of any given episode.
Springfield was inspired by a number of real-life locations, including creator Matt Groening's hometown of Portland, Oregon, the nearby town of Springfield, Oregon, and producer Mike Scully's hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. However, in order to emphasize it as an example of "Anytown, USA", the location of the fictional Springfield remains a mystery. "Clues" regarding Springfield's climate, geology, distance from real cities, or political alignment, which are found in numerous episodes of the series, are intentionally contradictory and inaccurate.
In November 2025, an island version of Springfield was the main map for the Fortnite x Simpsons crossover mini season.
Creation The fictional city of Springfield was intended to represent "Anytown, USA", and not be derived from any specific real-life location. However, the producers acknowledge deriving inspiration from numerous locations, including The Simpsons creator Matt Groening's hometown of Portland, Oregon, and Mike Scully's hometown, Springfield, Massachusetts.
Springfield was named after Springfield, Oregon, which, as a child, Groening had believed to be the fictitious Springfield featured in the 1950s sitcom Father Knows Best. Groening did not intend to place the fictional Springfield in Oregon, contrary to a 2012 interview with him in Smithsonian magazine; he instead adopted the name for the setting of The Simpsons in the hope that "everyone will think it's their Springfield." Moe's Tavern is actually based on 'Max's Tavern' in the neighboring town, Eugene. It is iconic for its pickled eggs on its counters and the television in the top right corner of the room. Al Jean explained that the magazine "misinterpreted something I've heard him say for at least 10 or 20 years. He was inspired by growing up in Portland, but it's really an every town".
Groening liked Second City Television setting of Melonville, a town with a large cast of recurring characters, and used it as inspiration for The Simpsons. He said, "I also figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S. In anticipation of the show's success, I thought, 'This will be cool; everyone will think it's their Springfield.' And they do".Simpsons launch hits Springfield BBC News. Retrieved July 21, 2007.
Location
Because of the many contradictory statements made regarding Springfield in the show, the town cannot exist in a specific state. In The Simpsons Movie, Ned Flanders tells Bart that the state where Springfield is located is bordered by the states of Ohio, Nevada, Maine, and Kentucky – only Ohio and Kentucky are neighboring states in reality, and Nevada and Maine are at opposite ends of the US. In the episode "The Bob Next Door", Sideshow Bob drives Bart to an area known as "Five Corners", which is where the boundaries of five different states (including the one where Springfield is located) meet; while none of the states' names are given, there is no such division in the real-life United States.
The fictional city's unknown geography is a recurring joke in the series; the Dayton Daily News called it the "riddle wrapped in an enigma that is Springfield's location." Episodes frequently make fun of the fact that Springfield's state is unidentifiable, by adding further conflicting descriptions, obscuring onscreen map representations, and interrupting conversational references.One of the contradictory identifications takes place in Lisa the Iconoclast (season 7, episode 16) in which the grave of Democratic Presidential candidate and later UN ambassador under President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson II, is shown to be located in Springfield's cemetery. The actual grave is in Evergreen Cemetery in Bloomington, Illinois. Like his father, Vice President Adlai Stevenson I, and his son, Senator Adlai Stevenson III, Stevenson was strongly connected to Illinois, having been Governor of the state from 1949 to 1953. The Stevenson grave is thus a "clue" pointing to Springfield being in Illinois.
David Silverman, who directed the movie and various episodes of the series, joked that Springfield is located in the fictional state of "North Takoma". This is substantiated by the state abbreviations NT and TA used within the show. As of A Tale of Two Springfields (season 12, episode 2), the telephone area codes for Springfield are 636 (St. Charles County and Western St. Louis County, Missouri)Simpsons Episode: Papa's Got a Brand New Badge (2002), First aired May 22, 2002 and 939 (Puerto Rico).
To promote The Simpsons Movie, various actual towns and cities across the U.S. called Springfield competed to hold the premiere. The promotion was, whichever state sent in the most votes would be the winner and would officially be which state The Simpsons takes place in. Despite the smaller size of Vermont compared to other states, the town of Springfield, Vermont was chosen. In 2016, a New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that "of all the Springfields in America, [The Simpsons] is most popular in Springfields in Virginia, Minnesota and New Jersey, and least popular in Springfields in Louisiana, Arkansas and Georgia".
In 2026, the long-running mystery was playfully addressed in the Disney+ special The Simpsons: Yellow Mirror. In the special, Homer Simpson—animated to look like an older version of series creator Matt Groening—is asked directly what state Springfield is in, and he answers "Oregon". Groening, originally from Portland, Oregon, had previously acknowledged that Springfield, Oregon, inspired the town's name, though the special's reveal is largely viewed as a tongue-in-cheek nod rather than a definitive rewriting of the town's intentionally impossible geography.
Fictional history The episode "Lisa the Iconoclast" revealed that Springfield was founded by a group led by Jebediah Springfield (a cover identity for notorious pirate Hans Sprungfeld) who, after misinterpreting a passage in the Bible, left Maryland trying to find "New Sodom". After he refuses to found a town where men are free to marry their cousins, half of the group leave. The dissenters found the nearby town of Shelbyville, named after fellow pioneer Shelbyville Manhattan, and the two cities have remained rivals ever since.
Springfield reached its pinnacle in the mid-20th century when it became the home of the world's first Aquacar factory; one-half of the U.S. was said to wear Springfield galoshes, and the city's streets were literally paved with gold. However, the town's prosperity was short-lived. In a 1992 episode, a fictional Time cover story on Springfield is titled "America's Worst City", and in a 1996 episode, Newsweek called the town "America's Crud Bucket".
Topography Springfield's fictional geography is shown to be comically varied and includes forests, meadows, mountain ranges, a desert, a glacier, beaches, badlands, canyons, swamps, a harbor, waterholes, and waterways. Major named geographical features include the Springfield Gorge, Springfield National Forest, the volcanic Mt. Springfield, the West Springfield Desert, which is claimed to be "three times the size of Texas", the Springfield Badlands, the gigantic Murderhorn Mountain, Springfield Glacier, Mt. Useful National Park, Springfield Mesa, Springfield Monument Park, and Springfield National Park.
The town's climate is usually depicted as dry and sunny, with a bright blue sky. However, in various episodes, it has been subject to many natural disasters, including heatwaves, blizzards, avalanches, earthquakes, acid rain, floods, hurricanes, lightning strikes, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions.
Springfield's environment is shown as unusually polluted. Overflowing garbage forces the whole town – population and structures — to move away from the massive dump that the old town of Springfield had become. Springfield is also home to the state's largest self-sustaining tire fire, which has been burning continuously for many decades. Lake Springfield's pollution almost leads to the town's destruction by an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) bomb in The Simpsons Movie,The Simpsons Movie and pollution from the nuclear power plant has mutated the fish in the river, causing some to grow an extra eye."Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish" Its atmosphere is so polluted that, in one 1995 episode, it reduces a comet, that was large enough that it was assumed that it would completely destroy the town, to a rock the size of a chihuahua's head in just a few seconds.Bart's Comet
Springfield is shown to feature a large numbered grid plan, ranging from streets at least as low as 3rd Street and at least as high as 257th Street.Bart Sells His Soul
Politics The fictional mayor of Springfield is Joe Quimby, a Democrat. In the episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts", Sideshow Bob runs for mayor as a Republican and defeats Quimby, but Bob is later discovered to have committed electoral fraud. During the episode "The Old Blue Mayor She Ain't What She Used to Be", Marge Simpson becomes the mayor of the city for a short period. In "Walking Big & Tall", it is revealed that Hans Moleman was once the mayor of Springfield.
Krusty the Clown represents Springfield in Congress as a Republican. Previous representatives include Horace Wilcox, who dies of a heart attack while in office in "Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington", and Bob Arnold, who is forced to resign after Lisa exposes his corruption in "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington".
Mary Bailey is the fictional governor of Springfield's state.
Religion
Sports The town is home to a number of fictional sporting teams, including the Springfield Isotopes, a minor league baseball team which plays its home games at Duff Stadium;"Hungry, Hungry Homer" the Springfield Atoms football team at Springfield Stadium;"Love Is a Many Strangled Thing" the NBA's Springfield Excitement (formerly the Austin Celtics);"The Burns and the Bees" and the Springfield Ice-O-Topes hockey team. Springfield resident Homer Simpson is also the owner of the Denver Broncos."You Only Move Twice"
Businesses Kwik-E-Mart
Kwik-E-Mart is a fictional convenience store run by Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. The Kwik-E-Mart first appeared in the first-season episode "The Telltale Head" (although mentioned in "Bart the General" as the "Quick-e-Mart"). In "Stark Raving Dad", a street sign reading "Highland" is seen outside one of the front windows, in the same blue color as is used for signs for Highland Avenue in Los Angeles. Likewise, three buildings are visible that are similar to some of those that might be seen on that street: two low buildings with bars over the windows, and a third, also with barred windows, which has a mission-style roof and a sign reading "Smog Center".
The episode "Homer and Apu" suggests that Apu is an employee of the Kwik-E-Mart and shows him travelling to the Himalayas, where the Kwik-E-Mart head office is located, to ask for his job back after being fired. However, Apu mentions at a bachelor auction that he runs his own business in "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons".