Ecumenopolis

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A depiction of Trantor, a fictional ecumenopolis from Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire

Ecumenopolis (from

Ancient Greek οἰκουμένη (oikouménē) 'the inhabited world', and πόλις (pólis
) 'city'; lit. 'world city'; pl. ecumenopolises or ecumenopoleis) is the hypothetical concept of a planetwide city.

Description

The word was invented in 1967 by the

Trantor in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.[3] When made public, Doxiadis' idea of ecumenopolis seemed "close to science fiction", but today is "surprisingly pertinent" according to geography researchers Pavle Stamenovic, Dunja Predic and Davor Eres,[1] especially as a consequence of globalization
.

Doxiadis also created a scenario based on the traditions and trends of urban development of his time, predicting at first a European eperopolis ("continent city") which would be based on the

Asia-Pacific respectively.[5]

In popular culture

Before the term had been created, the concept had been previously discussed. The American religious leader

Trantor as the setting of some of his Foundation novels.[6]

In

Star Wars Legends
also features Nar Shaddaa, a moon ecumenopolis known for being almost entirely ruled by crime lords, and Taris, a former ecumenopolis that was destroyed and became a ruined swamp.

In Dune, the Harkonnens' home world of Giedi Prime is a heavily polluted ecumenopolis infamous for its gladiator arenas.

The concept has been explored in the video game Stellaris, where players are given the option of transforming a planet into an ecumenopolis, which provides a great deal of housing and space for industrial production at the cost of making the planet's natural resources inaccessible.[8]

The video game Star Citizen currently features an ecumenopolis called ArcCorp which is owned by a fictional in-game company of the same name. As of March 2024, its current implementation in the game is a de facto ecumenopolis. However, as development continues, it is expected to feature oceans and small parts of undeveloped land.

A central setting in the

tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000 is a portrayal of Earth in the far future, where it is known as "Holy Terra" and is described as having been transformed into a vast, Gothic
-style ecumenopolis sometime during the 30th millennium AD after its establishment as the "Throneworld", or capital, of an interstellar superpower known as the Imperium of Man.

In

Magic: the Gathering, the plane of Ravnica is an ecumenopolis.[9]

DC Comics continuity features Darkseid's extra-dimensional home planet of Apokolips, often depicted as a hellish world covered entirely in industrial sprawl to feed Darkseid's brutal empire.[10]

The manga and film of Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei is set in a far future in which Earth has become the ruins of planet-covering city, which is suggested to be so large that it has consumed most of the Solar System as well, it may also be along the lines of a hollow-world or dyson shell. Some of his other works also take place in this same setting.

See also

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4438-7739-8. Archived
    from the original on November 6, 2021. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  2. ^ Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City. Routledge. p. 210.
  3. ^ Foundation Archived November 6, 2021, at the Wayback Machine By Isaac Asimov, page 9
  4. JSTOR 43618525
    .
  5. ISSN 0040-781X. Archived
    from the original on November 11, 2019. Retrieved November 11, 2019.
  6. ^ Chu, Seo-Young (2011). Do Metaphors Dream of Literal Sleep? A Science-Fictional Theory of Representation. Harvard University Press. p. 100.
  7. ^ "How Star Wars' Coruscant Became The Planet-Wide City Of Your Nightmares". Slash Film.
  8. ^ "Stellaris: Best Origins Explained and Ranked". The Gamer.
  9. ^ "Dungeons & Dragons: Ravnica, the Worldwide City, Explained". Comic Book Resources.
  10. ^ DC Comics: Anatomy of a Metahuman. Insight Editions. 2018. p. 100.

External links

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