List of mythological places
This is a list of mythological places which appear in mythological tales, folklore, and varying religious texts.
Egyptian mythology
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Aaru | The heavenly paradise where Osiris rules in ancient Egyptian mythology. |
| Akhet | An Egyptian hieroglyph that represents the sun rising over a mountain. It is translated as "horizon" or "the place in the sky where the sun rises".[1] |
| Benben | The mound that arose from the primordial waters Nu upon which the creator deity Atum settled in the creation myth of the Heliopolitan form of ancient Egyptian religion. |
| Duat | The Underworld and abode of the dead in Ancient Egyptian religion. |
| The Indestructibles | Two bright stars which, at that time, could always be seen circling the North Pole by ancient Egyptian astronomers.[2] |
| Land of Manu | Western abode of the Sun god Ra.[3] |
| Nun | The primordial waters from which the Benben arose at the beginning of the universe, also considered to be a god Nu. |
Greek mythology
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Arcadia | Mythological | A vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature, derived from the Greek province Arkadia which dates to antiquity. |
| Asphodel Meadows | Mythological | In Greek mythology, the section of the underworld where ordinary souls were sent to live after death. |
| Atlantis | Lost/Rumoured | The legendary (and almost archetypal) lost continent that was supposed to have sunk into the Atlantic Ocean. |
| Cloud cuckoo land | Fiction/Playwright | A perfect city between the clouds in the play The Birds by Aristophanes. |
| Chryse and Argyre | Misinformation/Lie | A pair of legendary islands, located in the Indian Ocean and said to be made of gold (chrysos) and silver (argyros). |
| Elysium (Elysian Fields) | Mythological | In Greek mythology, the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous. |
| Fortunate Isles/Islands of the Blessed | Semi-Mythological | Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, variously treated as a simple geographical location and as a winterless earthly paradise inhabited by the heroes of Greek mythology. |
| Garden of the Hesperides | Mythological | In Greek mythology, the sacred garden of Hera from where the gods got their immortality. |
| Hyperborea | Mythological | A land to the north in Greek mythology. |
| Laistrygon | Fiction/Epic | Home to a tribe of giant cannibals that Odysseus encountered on his way back home from the Trojan War. |
| Meropis | Fiction/Joke | A gigantic island created purely as a parody of Plato's Atlantis. |
| Mount Olympus | Mythological | "Olympos" was the name of the home of the Twelve Olympian gods of the ancient Greek world.[4] |
| Nysa | Mythological | A beautiful valley full of nymphs in Greek mythology. |
| Okeanos | The cosmic river encircling the Earth in Ancient Greek cosmology, also sometimes depicted as one of the Titan gods. | |
| Panchaia /Pangaia | A group of islands South of the Arabian peninsula inhabited by several tribes and rich with scented oils. Assumed by some to be the birthplace of the Olympian gods. | |
| Tartaros | In Greek mythology, a pit in the underworld for condemned souls. | |
| Themiskyra | The capital city of the Amazons in Greek mythology. |
Norse mythology
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Alfheim | The Land of elves in Norse mythology. |
| Asgard | The high placed city of the gods, built by Odin, chief god of the Norse pantheon. |
| Biarmaland | A geographical area around the White Sea in the northern part of (European) Russia, referred to in Norse sagas. |
| Fositesland | The kingdom of Forseti, the god of Justice. |
| Gjöll | A river that separates the living from the dead in Norse mythology. |
| Hel (heimr) | The underworld in Norse mythology. |
| Hvergelmir | A major spring in Norse mythology. |
| Jotunheim | Land of the giants in Norse mythology.[5] |
| Kvenland | A geographical area referred to in several medieval texts as well as in Norse sagas. The exact location of Kvenland is unknown, though, with several competing theories placing it in either the northern part of the Scandinavian peninsula or the southwestern part of what is now Finland. |
| Mímisbrunnr | A well associated with the being Mímir, located beneath the world tree Yggdrasil. |
| Muspelheim | Land of fire in Norse mythology. |
| Niflheim | World of cold in Norse mythology. |
| Niflhel | Cold underworld in Norse mythology. |
| Norumbega | A legendary settlement in northeastern North America, connected with attempts to demonstrate Viking incursions in New England. |
| Svartálfaheimr | The land of the Dark Elves in Norse mythology. |
| Urðarbrunnr | A well in Norse mythology. |
| Valhalla | (from Old Norse Valhöll "hall of the slain") is a majestic, enormous hall located in Asgard, ruled over by the god Odin. |
| Vanaheimr | The Land of the Vanir, another tribe of gods, according to Norse legends. |
| Yggdrasil | An immense and central sacred tree in Norse cosmology. |
Indian / Hindu mythology
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Agartha | A legendary city at Earth's core. |
| Amaravati | A holy city within another location known as Indraloka where siddhas make their home.[6] |
| Ayotha Amirtha Gangai | An important river in Ayyavazhi mythology. |
| Brahmapura | The abode of Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. |
| Himavanta | A legendary forest that locates at the hill of Himmanpan Mountain or the Himalayas |
| Jambudvīpa | Name for the terrestrial universe in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions. |
| Ketumati | A pure land belonging to Maitreya within Buddhism.[7] |
| Mount Meru | The sacred five-peaked mountain of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cosmology. It is considered to be the center of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. |
| Naraka | A realm resembling Hell in Dharmic religions where souls are temporarily punished before reincarnation. |
| Nirvana | The ultimate state of soteriological release (liberation from repeated rebirth) commonly associated with Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. |
| Rama Setu (Adam's Bridge) | Believed to be built by apes for the Hindu god Rama, this is a series of limestone shoals between India and Sri Lanka. Also referred to as Adam's Bridge. |
| Samavasarana | Meeting place of the tirthankaras in Jainism. |
| Sanzu River | A mythological river in Japanese Buddhism. |
| Shakdvipa | A land mass west of the Ural Mountains in Hindu mythology. |
| Shambhala | In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, a kingdom hidden somewhere in the Himalayas; Theosophists regard it as the home on the etheric plane of the governing deity of our planet, Sanat Kumara. |
| Svarga | A celestial realm of bliss in Hinduism. |
| Thuvaraiyam Pathi | In Ayyavazhi mythology, it was a sunken island some 240 km (150 miles) off the south coast of India. |
| Trāyastriṃśa | An important world of the devas in the Buddhist cosmology. |
| Tridaśa | A pantheon of Hindu deities, of Vedic origin and some developed later.[8][9] |
| Uttarakuru | A dvipa based on Kurus. |
| Vaikuntha | Heavenly abode (dwelling) of Vishnu.[10] |
| Vaitarna River | A river mentioned in the Garuda Purana and various other Hindu religious texts |
East Asian mythology
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Diyu | The realm of the dead or Hell in Chinese mythology. |
| Eight Pillars | A concept from Chinese mythology located in the eight cardinal directions, they are a group of eight mountains or pillars which have been thought to hold up the sky. |
| Feather Mountain | One of many important mythological mountains in Chinese mythology, particularly associated with the Great Flood. |
| Fusang | A mysterious land to the east in Chinese legends. |
| Jade Mountain | A mythological mountain in Chinese mythology and the residence of The Queen Mother of the West.[11] |
| Kunlun Mountain | A place where immortals lived according to Chinese mythology. |
| Longmen | A legendary waterfall in Chinese mythology. |
| Mount Buzhou | An ancient Chinese mythological mountain which, according to old texts, lay to the northwest of the Kunlun Mountains, in a location today referred to as the Pamir Mountains. |
| Mount Penglai | A legendary mountain in Chinese mythology, said to be situated on an island in the Bohai sea, home to Taoist immortals. |
| Moving Sands | One of the obstacles the fictional version of the monk Xuanzang and companions must cross over on their mission to fetch the Buddhist scriptures from India and return them to Tang China. |
| Red River | One of the mythological rivers said to flow from Kunlun, a mythological land, with mountainous features. |
| Shangri-La | A mystical, harmonious valley enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. |
| Weak River | One of the mythological rivers flowing near Kunlun, home of a Western Paradise. |
| Xangdu | The summer capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan empire became a mythological place and a metaphor for splendor and opulence, caused by the popular 1816 poem Kubla Khan an Samuel Taylor Coleridge. |
Abrahamic mythology
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Antillia | An island from an old Iberian legend set during the Muslim conquest of Hispania. The legend says that during this time seven Christian Visigothic bishops, who were fleeing Muslim Conquerors, embarked with their flocks on ships and set sail westwards into the Atlantic Ocean, leading them to an island (Antillia or Isle Of Seven Cities) where they founded seven settlements. |
| As-Sirāt | The bridge which every human must pass on the Yawm al-Qiyamah ("Day of Resurrection") to enter Paradise according to Islam. |
| Barzakh | A place separating the living from the hereafter or a phase/"stage" between an individual's death and their resurrection in "the Hereafter".[12][13][14][15][16] |
| Brig of Dread | A bridge to Purgatory that a dead soul had to cross. |
| Garden of Eden | A paradise where humans were first created according to Abrahamic religions and resided until cast out for disobeying God. |
| Heaven | In Abrahamic religions, the paradise where good people who have died continue to exist. |
| Hell | In some Abrahamic religions, a realm in the afterlife in which evil souls are punished after death. |
| Hitpun | A great dividing river separating the World of Darkness from the World of Light in Mandaean cosmology.[17] |
| Iram of the Pillars | The lost city mentioned in the Quran. |
| Jabulqa and Jabulsa | Two cities mentioned in Shi'i hadith. |
| Kingdom of Prester John | Legendary powerful Christian nation just beyond the Muslim world in medieval romantic literature, first located in South Asia, then Central Asia, then East Africa. |
| Kolob | An astronomical body (star or planet) said to be near the throne of God in Mormon cosmology. |
| Malakut | A proposed invisible realm, featuring in Islamic cosmology. |
| Matarta | A "station" or "toll house" that is located between the World of Light (alma ḏ-nhūra) from Tibil (Earth) in Mandaean cosmology. |
| Mount of the Temptation | The legendary location of Jesus Christ's Temptation, traditionally placed at Jebel Quruntul or 'Ushsh el-Ghurab near Jericho in the West Bank |
| Nbu | The Mandaic name for the planet Mercury. |
| Pandæmonium | The capital of Hell in John Milton's Paradise Lost. |
| Piriawis | The sacred life-giving river (yardna) of the World of Light in Mandaean cosmology. |
| Pleroma | Abode of the holy aeons in Gnosticism. |
| Scholomance | A legendary school of black magic run by the Devil himself, located in Hermannstadt (now: Sibiu, Romania). Located in the mountains, south of the city Sibiu, near an unnamed lake. |
| Siniawis | A region in the World of Darkness or underworld.[18] |
| Tripura | three cities or fortresses, is described in Hindu history as being constructed by the great Asura architect Mayasura |
| Yardna | A body of flowing fresh water that is suitable for ritual use as baptismal water in Mandaeism.[19] |
| Zarahemla | A civilization which was constructed in the ancient Americas, according to Mormon belief. |
| Zerzura | Saharan city known as the "oasis of little birds" rumored to be full of treasure. |
Celtic mythologies
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Annwn | The "otherworld" of Welsh mythology. |
| Avalon | Legendary Island of Apples, believed by some to be the final resting place of King Arthur. |
| Camelot | The city in which King Arthur reigned. |
| Cantre'r Gwaelod | A legendary ancient sunken kingdom said to have occupied a tract of fertile land lying between Ramsey Island and Bardsey Island. |
| Celliwig | The earliest named location for the court of King Arthur. |
| Brasil or Hy-Brasil | A mythical island to the west of Ireland. |
| Dinas Affaraon/Ffaraon | Legendary home to a branch of the Druids called the Pheryllt, who worked as metallurgists and alchemists. Also known as “The City of Higher Powers,” or the “Ambrosial City”, its rumored location is Snowdonia and is said to be the original placename of Dinas Emrys. |
| Emain Ablach | A mythical island paradise in Irish mythology. |
| Fintan's Grave | A mythological cave on the Irish mountain (now hill) Tul Tuinde[20] |
| Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann (Gorias, Finias, Murias, and Falias) | In Irish Mythology the Tuatha Dé Danann get their four magical treasures from four legendary cities: Gorias in the east; Finias, in the south; Murias in the west; and Falias in the north. |
| Lyonesse | A country in Arthurian legend, which is said to border Cornwall in England. |
| Mag Mell | A mythical underworld plain in Irish mythology, achievable only through death or glory. Meaning 'plains of joy', Mag Mell was a hedonistic and pleasurable paradise, usually associated with the sea. |
| Rocabarraigh | A phantom island in Scottish Gaelic mythology. |
| Tech Duinn | A mythological island to the west of Ireland where souls go after death. |
| Tír na nÓg | The Celtic Otherworld in Irish mythology. |
| Ys | A city located in Brittany, France that was supposedly built below sea level, and demolished when the Devil destroyed the dam protecting it. |
Others
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Adiri | Afterlife in Kiwai mythology.[21] |
| Adlivun, Adliparmiut, and Qudlivun | Afterlives in Central Inuit mythology. Adlivun and Adliparmiut are described as lands of misery, whereas Qudlivun is a land of happiness.[22] |
| Akilineq | Legendary location in Inuit mythology, believed to either be entirely mythical, or possibly Labrador Peninsula, Baffin Island, or even Iceland. |
| Alatyr | A sacred stone, the "father to all stones", the navel of the earth, containing sacred letters and endowed with healing properties in East Slavic legends. |
| Alomkik | A place accessible to the Abenaki peoples' mythological protector Pamola, where he holds those who trespass on Maine's Mount Katahdin. |
| Axis mundi | The center of the world or the connection between Heaven and Earth in various religions and mythologies. |
| Aztlán | Legendary original homeland of the Mexica people in Mexica/Aztec mythology. |
| Bald Mountain | A location in Slavic folk mythology related to witchcraft. |
| Baltia | An island of amber somewhere in northern Europe. |
| Biringan city | A mythical city that is said to invisibly lie between Gandara, Tarangnan, and Pagsanghan in Samar province of the Philippines. Biringan means "the black city" or the City of the Unknown in Waray. |
| Brittia | A mythical island off the coast of Austrasia. |
| Buyan | A mysterious island with the ability to appear and disappear using tides in Russian mythology. |
| Chinvat Bridge | The sifting bridge,[23] which separates the world of the living from the world of the dead in Zoroastrianism. |
| City of the Caesars | A city between a mountain of gold and another of diamonds supposed to be situated in Patagonia. |
| Cockaigne | In medieval mythology, it is a land of plenty where want does not exist. |
| Domdaniel | Cavernous hall at the bottom of the ocean where evil magicians, spirits, and gnomes meet. |
| El Dorado | Rumored city of gold in South America.[24] |
| Fountain of Youth | A place, detailed in many legends around the world, where one may drink of or bathe in its waters to restore their youth. |
| Fiddler's Green | In 19th-century English maritime folklore, it was a kind of after-life for sailors who had served at least fifty years at sea. |
| Hara Berezaiti | A legendary mountain around which the stars and planets revolve from the ancient Zoroastrian scriptures of the Avesta. |
| Hawaiki | The ancestral island of the Polynesians, particularly the Māori. |
| Hubur | A Sumerian term meaning "river", "watercourse" or "netherworld". |
| Irkalla | The underworld from which there is no return in Babylonian mythology. |
| Kalunga line | A watery boundary between the world of the living and the dead in religious traditions of the Congo region. |
| Karshvar | Legendary continents according to Avesta. |
| Kingdom of Opona | A mythical kingdom in Russian folklore. |
| Kingdom of Reynes | A country mentioned in the Middle English romance King Horn. |
| Kingdom of Saguenay | According to the French, an Iroquoian story of a kingdom of blonde men rich in gold and fur that existed in northern Canada prior to French colonization. |
| Kitezh | A legendary city beneath the waters of Lake Svetloyar. |
| Kyöpelinvuori | (Finnish for ghosts' mountain), in Finnish mythology, is the place which dead women haunt. |
| La Canela | Also known as the Valley of Cinnamon, is a legendary location in South America. |
| La Ciudad Blanca | "The White city", a legendary city of Honduras. |
| Lake Parime | An enormous lake in northeastern South America, supposedly the site of El Dorado. |
| Land of Darkness | A mythical land supposedly enshrouded in perpetual darkness. |
| Lemuria | A hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. |
| Lintukoto | In Finnish mythology, a paradise-like place where birds migrate every winter; because it was located near the edge of the sky dome, the sky was very close to the ground and therefore its inhabitants were dwarves. |
| Lost City of Z | An indigenous city that Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett believed had existed in the jungle of the Mato Grosso state of Brazil. |
| Lukomorye | An ancient region in Russian lands. |
| Mahoroba | A far-off land full of bliss and peace, similar to Arcadia. |
| Mictlan | The afterworld of the Mexica. |
| Mu | A hypothetical continent that allegedly disappeared at the dawn of human history. |
| Nibiru | A mythological planet described by the Babylonians. |
| Paititi | A legendary Inca lost city or utopian rich land said to lie east of the Andes. |
| Pohjola | The realm of Louhi in Finnish mythology, literally translated its name means "North". |
| Quivira and Cíbola | Two of the legendary Seven Cities of Gold supposed by Spanish conquistadors to have existed in the Americas. |
| Ryūgū-jō | The undersea palace of Ryūjin, the dragon kami of the sea. |
| Section 37 | Paul Bunyan's legendary camp. So large that it took half a day to walk around, with the kitchen itself being two-mile (3.2 km) long with nine cooks and seventy-five flunkies in its early days.[25] |
| Sierra de la Plata | (Spanish: Silver Mountains), was a legendary treasury of silver that was believed to be located in South America. |
| Silat Bridge | The Silat Bridge is a bridge in Lalish, Iraq that leads to the most holy Yazidi shrine in Yazidism. |
| Suddene | A country found in the Middle English romance King Horn. |
| Summerland | The name given by Theosophists, Wiccans and some earth-based contemporary pagan religions to their conceptualization of an (mostly pastoral) afterlife. |
| Takama-ga-hara | The dwelling place of the Shinto kami. |
| Thule | An island somewhere in the belt of Scandinavia, northern Great Britain, Iceland, and Greenland. |
| Vineta | A mythical city at the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. |
| Vyraj | A mythical place in Slavic mythology, where "birds fly for the winter and souls go after death". |
| Westernesse | A country found in the Middle English romance King Horn. |
| Xibalba | The underworld in Mayan mythology. |
| Yomi | The land of the dead according to Shinto mythology, as related in the Kojiki. |
| Yomotsu Hirasaka | A slope or boundary between this world, where the living live, and the other world, where the dead live (Yomi). |
References
- Gardiner, Alan H. (1957). Egyptian grammar : being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs. 1969 printing (3rd ed.). London: Published on behalf of the Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, by Oxford University Press. p. 489. ISBN 9780900416354. OCLC 229894.
- Curtis, Anthony R. "Space Today Online -- Solar System Planet Earth -- Ancient Astronomy". spacetoday.org. Retrieved 2018-03-17.
- Massey, Gerald (2014) [First published 1907]. Ancient Egypt - Light Of The World. Vol. 1. Jazzybee Verlag. p. 465. ISBN 978-3-8496-4444-4.
- Wilson, Nigel (31 October 2005). Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece. Abingdon, England: Routledge. p. 516.
- "Jotunheim". norse-mythology.org.
- Dalal, Roshen (2014). Hinduism: An Alphabetical Guide. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-341421-6. Entry: "Indraloka".
- Kim, Inchang (1996). The Future Buddha Maitreya: An Iconological Study. D.K. Printworld. p. 21.
- Lynn Foulston, Stuart Abbott (2009). Hindu goddesses: beliefs and practices. pp. 1–2. ISBN 9781902210438.
- Mani pp. 654–5
- Maehle, Gregor (2012). Ashtanga Yoga The Intermediate Series: Mythology, Anatomy, and Practice. New World Library. p. 207. ISBN 978-1-57731-987-0.
- Yang, Lihui; et al. (2005). Handbook of Chinese Mythology. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533263-6. pp. 162, 219
- Jane Dammen McAuliffe Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān Volume 1 Georgetown University, Washington DC p. 205
- Al-`Ali, Hamid. "What Is Al-Barzakh?". About Islam. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- Siddiqui, Ahdur Rasheed (2015). "Barzakh". Qur'anic Keywords: A Reference Guide. Leicestershire, UK: Islamic Foundation. p. 31. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- Abdul Husayn Dastghaib Shirazi. "Barzakh (Purgatory) - The Stage Between this World and the Hereafter". The HereAfter (Ma'ad). al-islam.org. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- "What Is al-Barzakh? 11110". Islam Question and Answer. 10 January 2000. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- Al-Saadi, Qais Mughashghash; Al-Saadi, Hamed Mughashghash (2012). Ginza Rabba: The Great Treasure. An equivalent translation of the Mandaean Holy Book. Drabsha.
- Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen (2002). The Mandaeans: ancient texts and modern people. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515385-5. OCLC 65198443.
- The Gnostic Bible (2003) (p. 810). New Seeds Books
- Mountain, Harry (May 1998). The Celtic Encyclopedia. Universal-Publishers. p. 679. ISBN 978-1-58112-892-5. Retrieved 16 January 2011.
- Leech 1984, p. 10.
- Leech 1984, p. 25.
- Dawson, M. M. (2005). The Ethical Religion of Zoroaster. Kessinger Publishing. p. 237. ISBN 9780766191365.
- "El Dorado". National Geographic.
- "SECTION 37 HIS LOGGING CAMP". paulbunyan.org.
Works cited
- Leech, Maria (1984). Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-308-40090-9.
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