History Main / UnderCity

This used to be part of a sprawling metropolis, or maybe it was a whole city of its own, but something happened. Maybe an earthquake buried it, or maybe they just decided to build new city on top of it and in time forgot the old one.

* Underground Duckburg in Creator/DonRosa's version of the ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse''. The Beagle Boys in particular like to use it as a hide-out.

* New York has become this in ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd''. MegaCity One is built on top of it and several others. It's a very nasty place that no sane person would want to venture into, being filled with mutant tribes, monsters (including werewolves), and even ''[[Franchise/{{Alien}} Xenomorphs]]''.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'' has [[CityPlanet Coruscant]], where the ground is always buried under at least five layers of ancient skyscrapers.

* [[CityOfAdventure Ankh-Morpork]] in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novels: Because the city is built on soft loam, near an extremely turgid river, the ground levels of its buildings find themselves buried every generation or so. The standard remedy is to just build another level on top, so now the city descends through the earth to an unknown depth. This has caused friction between the [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarfs]], who traditionally view anything underground as theirs, and the city's government, who think of those areas as sub-sub-basements and would rather not have unknown factors tunneling through them.

* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story "Nightfall," archaeologists discover that a hill near their city is actually the ruins of several older cities, piled on top of each other. They all burned down at suspiciously regular intervals. [[spoiler: It coincides with nightfall on a planet of (near-total) daytime. People panic and start burning things to bring back the light and wind up destroying everything. Over and over and over..]]

* Old New York in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' is the original New York City that was leveled by an alien invasion [[spoiler:actually the Swedish Air Force battling Bender and his fleet of spaceships after he stole the Nobel Peace Prize]]. Eventually, the city of New New York was simply built on top of the ruins, which had the sewers rerouted through them. In the 31st Century, the remnants of Old New York are still standing, derelict, beneath New New York, home only to the sewer mutants.

This isn't just any [[BeneathTheEarth underground area]]; the Under City used to be above the earth before being buried by whatever occurrence. Could be a whole GhostCity, or a part of an AbsurdlySpaciousSewer.

* Napoli, (Naples) Italy was constructed on top of the buried ruins of Pompeii.

* Underground Duckburg in Creator/DonRosa's version of DonaldDuck universe.

* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story "Nightfall," archaeologists discover that a hill near their city is actually the ruins of several older cities, piled on top of each other. They all burned down at suspiciously regular intervals.

* ''StarWars'' has [[CityPlanet Coruscant]], where the ground is always buried under at least five layers of ancient skyscrapers.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_city Link]] to relevent page on TheOtherWiki.

* ''VagrantStory'' has an Undercity area, notable for its high density population of undead.

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* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. Judges Guild module ''Dark Tower''. In the BackStory, a small village grew up around the White Tower of Mitra. When the Black Tower of Set appeared nearby, the village was buried by the landslides caused by the battle between the two towers. Within a decade a new village of treasure seekers called Mitras's Fist was established on the ground where the old village had stood. When the new villagers began digging down to find the old village, imagine their surprise when they found someone digging ''up'' to meet them...
* From ''Tabletopgame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', and Imperial Hive, usually a [[MegaCity megalopolis]] and sometimes an {{arcology}}, will almost invariably have such an "underhive" as the hive is continuously built upwards, and the underhive is considered the natural consequence of ''most'' established cities in the Imperium of Man. As civilization stays close to the top as it can manage, the underhive has a population density so thin that it can be considered derelict, except for the mutants, gangs, cults, fugitive psykers, and any other criminal element that seeks to stay away from prying eyes. Also notable is that the areas underneath range from claustrophobic maintenance tunnels to deserted city districts to enormous, abandoned underground industrial sites.
* TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms has cities built this way, particularly big and old ones like Westgate. In another way, Waterdeep stands on the still active Undermountain complex and [[NotSoSafeHarbor Skullport]] city and Ravens Bluff stands above an abandoned dwarven city under which there's in turn an abandoned drow city.
* ''Dark Dungeon'' RPG, supplement ''Samaris, Island of Adventure''. At one time the entire island of Samaris was covered by a giant city, which was also called Samaris. The city was destroyed in a war between the North (led by the demonic wizard king Acecerax) and the South (led by the demon witch empress Vekna) two hundred years ago. Southport (the largest city on the island), Northport, Eastport, Westport and Zentrumstadt are smaller cities built upon its ruins.

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* Old New York in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''.

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* Old Mournhold in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind: Tribunal''. It's not the ''only'' settlement in ruins under Mournhold, but the other one was ''built'' underground in the first place.
** Part of [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion the Imperial City's]] AbsurdlySpaciousSewer are old Ayleid constructs whose purpose have been lost over the millenia. Whether they ever actually were above-ground is left ambigious, however.

This isn't just any [[BeneathTheEarth underground area]]; the Under City used to be above the earth before being buried by whatever occurrence. Could be a whole GhostCity, or a part of AbsurdlySpaciousSewer.

* New York has become this in ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd''. MegaCity One is built on top of it and several others.

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* ''Cities of the Underworld'' is a documentary series that aired on the History Channel and explored subterranean structures under various cities and historic sites around the world. See the Real Life section below.

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** Likewise, western Guatemala City is built on top of the old Mayan city of Kaminaljuyú.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_city Link]] to relevent page on TheOtherWiki.

* Metru Nui in ''Franchise/{{Bionicle}}'', under the island of Mata Nui.

** Ancient Rome often used a practice of burring larger buildings and building on top of them rather than demolishing them. The Palatine hill is covered with ruin on top of ruin and has an impressive network of caves and tunnels under all of it.

* Cities in ''Tabletopgame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' almost invariably have such an "undercity". They're considered the natural consequence of being established for as long as ''any'' [=WH40K=] city.

* ''Cities of the Underworld'' is a documentary series that aired on the History Channel and explored subterranean structures under various cities and historic sites around the world.

* In ''[[TheRiftwarCycle A Darkness at Sethanon]]'', the titular Sethanon was built right on top of an ancient [[{{Precursors}} Valheru]] city.

* in ''VideoGame/{{Fallen London}}", bats stole Victorian London, the game's setting, from the surface and brought it underground. And it's far from the first city to have suffered this fate.

* Former St. Louis in ''{{Series/Defiance}}''

* In ''{{Tunnels}}'', the Colony is located in a gigantic series of caverns beneath London, while the abandoned Eternal City is between them. Beneath the Colony lies the Deeps, and beneath that is the Pore [[spoiler:and the other Pits]], and beneath ''those'' lies [[spoiler: the Garden Of The Second Sun]].

* Underground Duckburg in DonRosa's version of DonaldDuck universe.

* Underground Seattle. This was a part of the late 19th century Seattle business district that was buried when the streets were regraded to between 12ft and 30 ft (3.6m to 9.1m) above their former height after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. The areas formerly constituting sidewalks and alleys were left unfilled or were later excavated, and connecting tunnels were created under the roads- some intentionally to create maintenance tunnels and pedestrian bypasses for busy streets, and others during the TheEdwardianEra and TheRoaringTwenties to ease the transport of contraband and allow the former street level to serve as a literally underground combination RedLightDistrict and [[TheCityNarrows City Narrows]]. This created an eery network of tunnels lined by 19th century storefronts, many now serving as basements to the buildings above, though a few remain in use as bars or other establishments seeking to play off of the history.

* NeilGaiman's ''{{Neverwhere}}'' has a London Below which consists largely of places buried and forgotten by London Above.