History Main / SunkenCity

* ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'': For a time, Aquaman was based in Sub Diego, a portion of San Diego that was submerged in an attempt to convert humans into subaquatic beings. The population consisted of a mix of these altered humans and Atlantian refugees.

* The climax of ''Mindstar Rising'' by Creator/PeterFHamilton takes place in an English village that has long since sunken into a quagmire when polar melt flooded the Fenlands. The former dictator of Britain has his hideout there, as the area is useless for fishing or agriculture and so no-one goes there.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWomanInfiniteFrontier'': In ''Young Diana'', Diana goes looking for one of the missing Themysciran history texts in a sunken city in the waters around Themyscira.

* ''ComicBook/{{Mosely}}'' In the comic book, before the AI Overlords controlled climate change, there were superstorms that sunk many cities. The God of the Ocean lives in one of them.

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[[quoteright:350:[[Film/AIArtificialIntelligence https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_aicity.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Damn it, who kept the water running?!"]]

%% Caption selected per above IP thread. Please do not replace or remove without discussion here:
%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900

* In ''Manga/YokohamaKaidashiKikou'', due to an environmental shift whose details are largely unrevealed, a great many coastal cities are completely covered by the ocean. At least one chapter revolves around exploring one such city, Yokosuka, whose street lights still come on even though the city is completely submerged.
%%* ''Anime/PonyoOnACliffByTheSea'' (in a strangely lighthearted way)
* The namless ruined city in ''Anime/ElHazardTheMagnificentWorld'' used to showcase the ancient destructive power of the demoness Ifurita.
* ''Anime/AgentAika'' has ''modern'' underwater ruins from when the sea levels rose and flooded coastal cities.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' has ''[[RuinsOfTheModernAge modern]]'' underwater ruins from when the sea levels rose and flooded coastal cities.
* ''Anime/BlueSubmarineNo6'' shows the flooded ruins of Tokyo at the beginning of the first episode and has even a underwater submarine battle around them in second one.
* In ''Anime/WeatheringWithYou'', [[spoiler:when Hodaka returns to Tokyo 3 years later, the city has become almost completely submerged because of all the rain, since Hina isn't using her powers anymore and cannot stop it.]]
* Nanoha and Fate's final battle in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaTheMovieFirst'' takes place in a simulated submerged city. They use the same simulation for a training match the beginning of ''[[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaReflection Reflection]]'', [[CallBack with Nanoha commenting on how nostalgic it is]].

* For a time, ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} was based in Sub Diego: a portion of San Diego that was submerged in an attempt to convert humans into subaquatic beings. The population consisted of a mix of these altered humans and Atlantian refugees.
* ''Creator/TangentComics'': the city of New Atlantis was founded atop the ruins of Atlanta, Georgia, after the Florida peninsula was destroyed in Earth-9's version of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Drowntown}}'', future London [[GlobalWarming has a lot more water]] than it used to. It's still fully inhabited, however, and has actually gained population as people seek refuge from places that have it worse off. Among other things, the flooding means that water-based transport is now considerably more common — one of the main characters is an aqua-courier, riding through what used to be streets.

* Mark Schultz's ''ComicBook/XenozoicTales'', set a few thousand years in the future after apocalyptic cataclysms, has New York City now named the "City in the Sea" (the name "New York City" forgotten long ago), with most buildings now standing in the sea with the upper levels poking above the surface, but still a fully populated city.
* ''[[ComicBook/WonderWomanInfiniteFrontier Young Diana]]'': Diana goes looking for one of the missing Themysciran history texts in a sunken city in the waters around Themyscira.
* In [[Creator/BrianWood Brian Wood's]] comic series ''The Massive'', many coastal cities have been submerged as a result of seismic activity and sea level rise brought about by [[GaiasVengeance the Crash]]. Hong Kong has somewhat adapted by building floating platforms between the tops of skyscrapers, but others haven't been so lucky. New York is largely abandoned, while Boston Harbor has been burning for months after vandals ignited an oil slick.

* Kevin Costner's ''Film/{{Waterworld}}'' had underwater ruins... which turn out to be the city of Denver.
* American films have a particular fondness for showing New York City become flooded and submerged.
** ''Film/AIArtificialIntelligence'' (2001) had underwater ruins of the submerged parts of New York City.
** In ''Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow'' (2004), a superstorm strikes New York and floods Manhattan. When the freezing storm hits the city, it is flooded up to quite a few floors.
** Before those, ''Film/DeepImpact'' (1998) had an asteroid impact into the Atlantic and cause giant tsunami waves and flooding over the East Coast, Western Europe, and West Africa, though New York is the only city shown.
** And long, long, ''long'' before any of the previous, ''Deluge'' (1933!!!) had first an earthquake destroy New York, then raging waves and flooding.
* In ''Film/GodzillaVsMegaguirus'', Tokyo’s district of Shibuya gets flooded by the [[DreadfulDragonfly meganulons]].

* In Creator/KimStanleyRobinson’s book ''New York 2140'', New York has become this due to GlobalWarming. This, however, doesn’t mean the city is abandoned: in fact, it still is a vibrant city, only now with canals instead of streets and boats instead of cars

* The 1987 novel ''Drowning Towers'' (or ''The Sea and the Summer'') by George Turner describes a future in which Melbourne was partially submerged in water. As the tops of sky scrapers are above the water level, they are still inhabited by the cities' poorer classes.
* GlobalWarming in ''Literature/TheExpanse'' has resulted in many coastal buildings getting lost in the water.
* In ''Literature/{{Firefight}}'' of Literature/TheReckonersTrilogy, Babylon Restored, formerly Manhattan, is flooded. The [[DifferentlyPoweredIndividual Epic]] Regalia who rules the city did this intentionally to boost up her MakingASplash powers within her domain. Unlike most examples, though, she has to continuously use her power to ''keep it'' that way, as the island is still above sea-level; the characters note that the water bends upwards like a hill in and around the city, and [[spoiler: when Regalia dies, the water rapidly flows back into the sea without her keeping it there]].

* In ''Literature/TheLordOfTheIsles'', it seems like you can't turn around without running into a sunken city or island. They don't always stay sunken, either, what with all the wizards running around.
* By Creator/PaoloBacigalupi
** Literature/TheDrownedCities in the novel of that name, set in a flooded and lawless former United States.
** The Teeth in ''Literature/ShipBreaker''. They're completely submerged [[spoiler:so are used to shipwreck the Pole Star by the protagonist, who grew up in the area.]]
** ''Literature/TheWindupGirl''. Bangkok ends up like this at the end of the novel, [[spoiler:to the delight of the title character as she can bathe in the water to keep herself cool (she's genetically engineered and can't get sick from the dirty water, but suffers from overheating). And as the authorities have evacuated along with most of the populace, she doesn't have to worry about anyone trying to arrest her.]]
* In ''Blackfish City'' by Sam J. Miller, one character has a vivid memory of the floodgates being sabotaged in New York City. Much of the former United States is like this, so much so that the only functioning US government is the US Navy.

* ''Literature/JoeGolemAndTheDrowningCity'' features the titular Drowning City, which is a AlternateHistory New York that was mostly submerged in 1925. Society remains, but the city's functionally lawless now.

* One episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' started out with the team stuck in a flooded alternate-Earth San Francisco, clinging to the unsubmerged tip of the Transamerica Pyramid as a refuge from sharks.
* ''[[Series/TheOuterLimits1995 The Outer Limits (1995)]]'' episode ''Inconstant Moon'' [[spoiler:ends this way. After surviving their hell night as the solar storm impacts the Earth, Sam and Leslie awake to find that the apartment building they're in is basically now an island as the entire city has flooded up to at least about fourth-storey level.]]

* In ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', near the end of the game, Station Square gets submerged underwater. With the power of Super Sonic, you have to do battle against Perfect Chaos, who was the cause of the devastation.

%%* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' has more than one.

* In ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'', the city of New Londo is half submerged in water, and mostly populated by homicidal ghosts. It turns out that the city was flooded by the Three Healers when the Darkwraiths (humans feeding on "Humanity" and becoming twisted by the Dark) began to get out of control and the Abyss began to take shape beneath New Londo: flooding the city sealed both of those up and put a stop to the spread of the Abyss.
** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' has a couple: the realm of Heide is almost completely submerged by the sea, with only a couple of towers still habitable above the water. The Iron Keep is likewise sunken... in ''lava''. The Old Iron King became too greedy, and built his castle too high; the castle (suggested to be pure iron) got really, really heavy and partially sank into the volcano the King had insisted it be built on.
* ''VideoGame/TheCrystalKey'' has the Arkonian capital city of Suralon, which was almost completely submerged when the [[EvilOverlord evil psychic Ozgar]] bombarded it with his gravity-altering satellites. Naturally, the people there evacuated the place while it was sinking.
* In ''[[VideoGame/AnnoDomini Anno]] 2070'', set after a massive global warming event, has city ruins occasionally located on underwater plateaus. They can be harvested for building materials.
* In ''VideoGame/AceCombat04ShatteredSkies'', your enemy's capital city, Farbanti, has a submerged downtown full of scorched, tilted skyscrapers (and during the battle, submarines) due to an asteroid impact.
** Farbanti and its still-flooded districts also feature prominently in ''VideoGame/AceCombat7SkiesUnknown'' as the site of yet another massive aerial battle. The BossBattle in the climax involves a high-speed chase through the toppled skyscrapers that you may partake in if you're so inclined.
* Given the amount of damage it's suffered after a genocidal civil war, Rapture of ''VideoGame/BioShock'' fame probably counts, even if it thankfully hasn't flooded yet. In the sequel, as you're a Big Daddy in a self-contained suit, you can go outside and see what it's like from without.
* Miku in ''VideoGame/{{Submerged}}'' explores the ruins of one, searching for supplies and collecting documents that recount what happened to the city.
* Oakmont, Massachusetts, which is the titular location in ''VideoGame/TheSinkingCity''. It mysteriously flooded and filled up with monsters, making numerous neighborhoods unlivable. It turns out to be due to [[spoiler: Cthylla, Cthulhu's daughter, waking up beneath it.]]
* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'', [[spoiler:Tokyo gets flooded by God]] during the final leg of the game. As if being [[spoiler:struck by nukes and subsequently turned into a lawless hellhole]] earlier wasn't bad enough!
* In ''VideoGame/Persona5'', the BigBad's [[MentalWorld palace]] shows Japan as this, with him being the captain of the ark that carries the only ones he deems worthy to survive.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'', after beating each Shadow Mario challenge, Corona Mountain will flood Delfino Plaza with water, and it remains submerged until after the player visits Corona Mountain for the first time.
* ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' has the aptly named Flooded City as part of its game world. It's a comparatively small coastal zone full of ruined, half-toppled skyscrapers that's curious for being only about a kilometer as the crow flies away from a scorching desert.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', at one point you cross a river by way of a shoopuf (basically an elephant-like creature that can tread water) and there are city ruins underneath the surface. Wakka explains that the city was destroyed by Sin, a massive creature said to punish civilizations that become too technologically advanced.
* In ''VideoGame/CriminalCaseTheConspiracy'', most of the neighborhood of Maple Heights is flooded in sea water after a catastrophic earthquake strikes the city of Grimsborough and sinks it to the ground. Some flooded sections of the district are shallow enough to walk around, while others have entire buildings submerged.

* PlayedForLaughs with the Lost City of Atlanta in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', complete with a populace of humans evolved/mutated into mermaids by the Coca-Cola bottling plant.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanet'', the characters go forward in time and see New York underwater. And yes, it was a GreenAesop about GlobalWarming.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'', the titular kingdom's capital is protected by a massive air bubble but the outskirts are exposed to the ocean and in ruins.
* ''WesternAnimation/NeoYokio'': Parts of Neo Yokio are submerged, mainly 14th Street. The top of two skyscrapers poke out of the harbor of Battery Park.