Line #59 Main/WorldInTheSky


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9	[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/{{Skyland}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/skyland.png]]]]
10	[[caption-width-right:300:[[FridgeLogic You're on your own in figuring out how atmosphere and gravity work]].]]
11
12	->''"Five-thousand feet..."\
13	"Ten-thousand feet..."\
14	"Fifteen-thousand feet..."\
15	"Hallelujah."''
16	-->-- '''Countdown Voice''', ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite''
17
18	This is less a {{World Shape\|s}}, and more a series of world pieces. Landmasses [[FloatingContinent float suspended in an atmosphere]]. They can range in size from tiny "islands" to huge continents with vast civilizations. The smallest islands are typically just chunks of rock with some trees or the occasional house on them; the largest can be worlds in miniature, with forests, cities, and internal seas.
19
20	Impossible[[note]]or nearly impossible -- see ''Literature/TheIntegralTrees''[[/note]] under physics resembling ours, worlds of this type are ''usually'' found exclusively in fantasy. What keeps them hovering? Where does the gravity come from? What's keeping the atmosphere in place? What, if anything, is there at the "bottom" of these worlds? [[LostTechnology Nobody knows]], but maybe AWizardDidIt, or it may be AnotherDimension or an ElementalPlane where things don't work quite by the rules of regular physics. Do not expect the outcome of falling off the side of one of these pieces to be properly explored.
21
22	In science fiction settings, this is often seen in the form of gas giants and of Venus-like worlds with thick atmospheres and unlivable surfaces. In these situations, mysteriously floating chunks of rock aren't generally an option and settlements chiefly consist of artificially built floating cities, usually held aloft by or outright built in giant balloons. In the case of gas giants, the question of the unseen surface world is answered by there not being one to begin with, just layers of increasingly toxic and pressurized gases.
23
24	Sometimes, a World in the Sky may be placed above a more conventional world which, for whichever reason, is largely or entirely uninhabitable. In these cases, the World in the Sky may have been created or settled specifically to escape whatever made the original surface unsuitable for life.
25
26	[[WaterfallIntoTheAbyss Waterfalls endlessly pouring into the void]] are a popular visual touch. Don't bother asking how all that water is renewed or how it can fall off in such quantities without running out.
27
28	Travel is often by CoolAirship and ThoseMagnificentFlyingMachines. {{Flying Seafood Special}}s and {{Living Gasbag}}s will also be common sights in the skies of these worlds.
29
30	Compare ShatteredWorld, for broken worlds [-[[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]-], and FloatingContinent, which usually exists in a more normal world with people also living on the surface below. See also TheSkyIsAnOcean, which is almost always used in worlds like these. See also OceanPunk, for an actual ocean. This can sometimes be a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic Earth]].
31	----
32	!!Examples:
33
34	[[foldercontrol]]
35
36	[[folder:Advertising]]
37	* British Gas sold itself via TV advertising using the [[https://vimeo.com/147127244 Your Home Is Your World]] theme, in which each individual customer's home was portrayed as a planet individual to itself, connected by British Gas and its fleet of spacecraft/service vans. Britain effectively became a country of Worlds In The sky for advertising purposes.
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
41	* ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheKingdomOfClouds'': The titular location is a city built by a race of technologically advanced ancient humans in the skies, using their technology to turn clouds into solid ground for them to construct their cities upon.
42	* ''Manga/FairyTail'': Edolas from the Anima arc is an Earthlike land with an assortment of floating islands, including the one carrying the Exceeds' homeland of Exteria, and another that the King used to store the Magnolia [[PowerCrystal La'cryma]].
43	* ”Anime/HirogaruSky!PrettyCure”: The setting and home of main protagonist, Sky Land.
44	* ''Manga/{{Radiant}}'': The islands aren't floating, they're the tops of very high and narrow mountains, but the effect is similar. Zeppelins and hot-air balloons are the most common transportations, alongside flying broomsticks for sorcerers.
45	* ''Anime/RahXephon'': The Mu world is not quite a World in the Sky: there's one landmass. However, that piece of land quickly got overcrowded, so the Mu built gigantic flying cities that allowed the vast majority of them to live anywhere over the vast ocean.
46	* ''Literature/WorldEndWhatDoYouDoAtTheEndOfTheWorldAreYouBusyWillYouSaveUs'': The Floating Islands were created for the specific purpose of keeping the surviving races safe from the seventeen Beasts that inhabit the surface world below, long after all humans (called here as the Emnetwyte) have gone extinct bar one.
47	[[/folder]]
48
49	[[folder:Asian Animation]]
50	* ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf'': This appears in ''Flying Island: The Sky Adventure'', as its name implies. Weslie's friends are sent to different floating worlds and Weslie has to travel through the sky to find his friends.
51	[[/folder]]
52
53	[[folder:Card Games]]
54	* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'': The Urza's Saga arc visits Serra's realm, a realm of endless skies dotted with floating stretches of land where angels rule over peasants who can't travel from one farmland to another, as seen [[https://scryfall.com/card/usg/320/drifting-meadow here]] and [[https://scryfall.com/card/usg/325/serras-sanctum here]].
55	[[/folder]]
56
57	[[folder:Comic Books]]
58	* ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'': The initial depiction of the 31st century version of Jupiter, published in 1968, depicted it as having a solid surface where the Jovians lived and mined Harkovite. With Jupiter, this is utterly impossible. By the fourth comic in which the Guardians appeared, published in 1975, this had changed to depicting the Jovians as living in spherical floating cities that hovered in the upper atmosphere and Harkovite was now mined on Mercury instead. Of course, science has now proven that with [[DeathWorld Jupiter]], this would still be incredibly impossible.
59	* ''ComicBook/TheJetsons'': After Hanlon's meteor resulted in the world flooding, humanity has since built magnetically suspended cities to live in, something that comes under threat with the arrival of Jacob's meteor, a meteor made of an unknown, magnetic material heading for the trench created when the Hanlon Meteor crashed into the planet. According to Jane's estimates, should they collide, the impact would result in an EarthShatteringKaboom.
60	* ''ComicBook/{{Meridian}}'' has a society of inhabited floating islands above an inhabited planetary surface. There's little contact between the two areas, although they're aware of each other's existence.
61	* ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'': Marvel's Asgard was always depicted as a huge island floating in extradimensional space.
62	* ''ComicBook/{{Shakara}}'': Eva Procorpio lives in a floating villa on the planet Terraqueouis, a world which seems to consist entirely of floating villas.
63	[[/folder]]
64
65	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
66	* ''WesternAnimation/DragonHunters'' ("''Chasseurs de dragons''"), the full-lenght CGI prequel to the 2D animated series of the same name shows this kind of setting in all its beauty and picturesqueness.
67	* ''WesternAnimation/TheMysteriousGeographicExplorationsOfJasperMorello'' is set in a gothic-SteamPunk world of floating islands and floating Victorian-style cities wreathed in smoke and criss-crossed by bridges. Airmen in steam-driven iron [[ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld dirigibles]] trawl the aerial trading routes between city-states. Universities send explorers and cloud biologists on expeditions into "uncharted air". There is downward gravity: people can fall off airships into unknown depths.
68	* ''Anime/SonicTheHedgehogTheMovie'': Planet Freedom consists of a series of {{floating continent}}s above an otherwise normal planet. This "inner world", called the Land of Darkness, is completely uninhabited except for Robotnik and his MechaMooks, so from the perspective of the inhabiants of the Land of the Sky, they live in this. Unlike most examples of this trope, the anti-gravity actually does play a crucial plot-point: Robotnik's end-goal is to [[spoiler:destroy the northern pole, which anchors the Land of the Sky to the Land of Darkness, whereupon the continents' anti-gravity properties will see them be hurled into space, killing everyone]].
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
72	%% The Hallelujah mountains in Avatar are not an example -- they are a Floating Continent. Please stop adding it.
73	* ''Film/FlashGordon1980'': It's implied that Ming's kingdom is actually a collection of floating continents in atmosphere. Near the end of the movie, Flash suggests escaping the Hawkmen's world by making parachutes and jumping ''down'' to Arborea, and Dr. Zarkov doesn't rule it out.
74	* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'': Thor's "homeworld" Asgard is little more than a medium-sized city, surrounded by a compact landscape of oceans and craggy mountains, all of it floating freely in space. Said oceans cascade over the edges into the void, and the whole arrangement appears to have a diameter in the tens of kilometers, give or take, with many of the world's edges being easily visible from the shore. Question like "where does the seawater come from?" or "where do they grow all that food?" are never addressed.
75	* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Bespin is a gas giant whose inhabitants live chiefly in Cloud City, an artificial station that hovers in its upper levels, and in a few outlying installations built to harvest a valuable gas. The ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' continuity also shows it as being home to a thriving ecology of {{Living Gasbag}}s and [[FlyingSeafoodSpecial flying fishes]].
76	[[/folder]]
77
78	[[folder:Literature]]
79	* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': The Ellimist's world is stated to be this in ''The Ellimist Chronicles''. Or rather, it's caused and maintained by the Ellimist's people -- the surface is too inhospitable to live on, so they live on chunks of crystal held aloft by the constant flapping of their flying residents. Their names are more like addresses, they have strictly scheduled free-fly and rest time, and not much else about their culture (such as where they actually get food) is given much detail.
80	* ''Literature/CityOfNoEnd'': Dorith’s End is an odd variant – it’s connected on one side to the rest of the City, but it is a small continental shard that juts out into thin air, and is presumably prevented from collapsing by whatever weirdness is going on with the artificial gravity in the area. Scavenger ships are capable of sailing on the pure air of the surrounding Abyss thanks to the malfunctioning gravity field, and collect chunks of floating concrete and metal.
81	* ''Literature/TheDeathGateCycle'': Arianus, the world of air, is a series of islands and small continents floating at different heights in a world-sized volume of air. Some thought was put into how this kind of world would work -- the islands are made of "coralite", a substance excreted by worm-like animals that contains many small bubbles of lighter-than-air gas (actual stone is very rare and precious). Drought is also an issue, as rain soaks right into the porous coralite and out of reach, and as such water is a very valuable resource, while most native plants have specialized adaptations for storing or producing it. Transportation is mainly by flying ship or [[DragonRider dragonback]]. Unusually for this trope, it's an explicitly vertically oriented World in the Sky, taller than it is broad, and changes in temperature and air pressure become noticeable issues as one moves between its Low, Mid and High Realms.
82	* ''Literature/TheEdgeChronicles'' features a small city built on a floating rock, which in turn was anchored to a city built upon a much larger floating rock. Which has "gardens" of stones similar to it, that occasionally grow large enough to become less dense than air and float away into the sky. The floating city is kept from floating away via a combination of many huge anchors and a lump of impossibly dense material.
83	* ''Literature/{{Faller}}'': Earth gets ''turned into'' this by some physicists trying to use a zero-point energy phenomenon they don't fully understand.
84	* ''Literature/TheIntegralTrees'': An unusual, real-physics variation occurs in the form of the "smoke ring". This is a toroidal cloud of gas and matter which orbits a very low-output neutron star, which in turn orbits a sun-like star in a binary configuration. It includes a ring of breathable atmosphere, in which reside a number of flying plants and animals, including some humans who've "[[LostColony gone native]]".
85	* ''Literature/MinlasFlowers'': The protagonist is forced to land on a world with dozens of floating continents: the shattered remnants of a shield designed to camouflage the actual surface from the AbsoluteXenophobe Huskers. The camouflage fragments have some form of anti-gravity, allowing them to hover several thousand meters in the air, where they have flipped over and subsequently gathered water and vegetation. The fragments hold a human society that uses zeppelins and primitive airplanes for travel.
86	* ''Literature/ThePlayerOfGames'': One of the character wants to ''build'' one of those, because it would cooler than the artificial worlds usually made by the Culture (which just show how blasé the Culture citizens can be: [[RingWorldPlanet Ring Worlds]] and sapient spaceships with hundreds of millions of people living inside can be deemed ''boring''). The Culture's technology would allow it to build such a world, except that it would be a lot of energy and matter lost on a whim.
87	* ''Literature/{{Skyward}}'': In ''[=ReDawn=]'', the titular homeworld of the [=UrDail=] is a gas giant, with the [=UrDail=] themselves living on continent-sized trees that float in ReDawn's upper atmosphere, processing the planet's toxic atmosphere into breathable air in addition to providing something to build on. The actual planetary surface is only visited by miners in protective gear.
88	* ''Literature/ShadowOfTheConqueror'' takes place in a world of endless sky called Everfall. Vertically, the world is [[WrapAround looped]] like a game of ''Videogame/{{Asteroids}}'', such that if you jump off the edge of Telos (the setting's primary continent), you land back where you started 24 hours later. If you look up, you can actually see the underside of Telos itself, which is held in place by a giant tectonic deposit of a magical mineral called darkstone, which only moves when exposed to light.
89	* ''Literature/TheShatteredWorld'' (1984) by J. Michael Reaves is set entirely in a "world" consisting of floating islands (actually pieces of a former shattered planet) surrounded by a sphere of breathable air, each with its own ecosphere and some degree of (magically enhanced and directional) [[ArtificialGravity gravity]]. The islands are stabilized and kept from crashing into each other by magical rune stones created by the mages who originally saved mankind from being wiped out when the planet crumbled. The only way of crossing the void from one fragments to another is flying airships, since the void has no gravity, which means that fragments may float "upside down" over each other and vegetation can overgrow an island completely.
90	%%* ''Literature/SkiesUnbroken'': Discovering new floating islands is the main characters' ambition.
91	* ''Literature/{{TP}}'' has a relatively hard example. Possibly inspired by the same discovery of Io's gas "doughnut". One of the antagonists keeps teleporting a kidnapped boy to different planets ForTheEvulz and one of the planets is a similar air torus, where everybody keeps falling indefinitely. It's inhabited by seemingly hostile archaeopteryx-like creatures. Later another antagonist gets stuck there forever.[[note]]To be more precise, the rescued boy hit him with the device that was used to track him through multiple planets and bring him back to Earth. The device teleported the villain and itself. By the time the protagonists or police could build another such device all traces dissipated.[[/note]] ''Archaeopteryxes'' turn out to be sentient and possess teleporter technology, but don't see humans as worth contacting -- they treat their guest as a pet and keep him in a pen. Oh, and it was overuse of teleporters that destroyed their rocky planet and twisted gravity to hold its atmosphere in a torus.
92	* ''Literature/{{Vertical}}'' by Rafał Kosik: Due to some unspecified phenomenon ([[spoiler:[[NiceJobBreakingItHero possibly caused by the protagonists]]]]) the world is turned into infinite sky [[spoiler:and infinite ocean]] full of vertical "strings" of infinite length. There are at least two large landmasses, which ended up suspended on strings that penetrated them, as well as a number of mechanical "cities" slowly climbing up.
93	* ''Literature/VigorMortis'' takes place in a world where the sky is endlessly lit up, darkened only by the movement of the islands causing higher islands to block out the sky, all floating over a being known as the "Mistwatcher".
94	* ''Literature/{{Virga}}'' takes place inside a HollowWorld filled with air, where people, ships, entire cities, and man-made miniature "suns" [[TheSkyIsAnOcean float around]]. To the inhabitants, their world is the sky, filled with islands of matter.
95	[[/folder]]
96
97	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
98	* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
99	** ''TabletopGame/{{Mystara}}'': Sufficient numbers of floating continents turn up in the setting to suggest this trope, both in outer-world Floating Ar (AWizardDidIt) and orbiting the inner sun of the Hollow World (the Immortals Did It). Subverted in the former case, as the people of Ar still depend on resources from the land or sea beneath them.
100	** ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'': Several planes have this trait.
101	*** The [[VoidBetweenTheWorlds Astral Plane]] exhibits this where solid matter is present, with the note that the "land" is actually [[GiantCorpseWorld the petrified corpses of deities]] who succumbed to GodsNeedPrayerBadly.
102	*** The Elemental Plane of Air is mostly, well, air, but it has a few islands of earth or ice that are easy to get to due to its subjective gravity.
103	*** The Heroic Domain of Ysgard consists of continents floating atop immense rivers of earth flowing forever through an endless skyscape.
104	*** The Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus combines this trope with EternalEngine, with an infinite array of gears locked together, some the size of islands, others the size of continents, all boasting habitable land on their flat surfaces.
105	*** The Infernal Battlefield of Acheron is made up of enormous iron cubes floating in a void, which occasionally smash into each other, crushing the armies fighting on their surfaces.
106	*** The Bleak Eternity of Gehenna consists of vast volcanoes without bases or peaks rising endlessly into a smoky void, surrounded by free-floating volcanic "earthbergs".
107	** ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'': The Dempilane of Dread consists of chunks of landscape -- the Core, Clusters, and Islands -- adrift in a directionless zone of supernatural Mists. Each piece of landscape has its own gravity and own climate, and ''appears'' to have its own sky and horizons, but travel too far, dig too deep, or fly too high and you'll still wind up at the Misty Border. One of the domains, Aerie, is actually a FloatingContinent of the conventional sort as well.
108	** ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'' includes air-based worlds as possible setting (along with the classical earth planets, fire suns and water worlds), which have no solid ground but can include some floating islands.
109	* ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'': Venus has a dozen or so "aerostat" habitats in the upper atmosphere. Basically balloons filled with an Earth-like atmosphere and inhabited, the planet's atmosphere is so dense that they float safely above the planet's unlivable surface.
110	* ''TabletopGame/TheLadysRock'' D10 setting combines floating sky-islands with the principles of UsefulNotes/{{Discordianism}}.%%Meaning?
111	* ''TabletopGame/{{Numenera}}'': Urvanas -- what we know as Venus -- is populated by clusters of living bubble-cities drifting endlessly in its cloudy skies, occasionally reproducing when they meet, which serve as home for the survivors of a long-lost expedition from Earth and to a native alien species. A planetary surface is present beneath it all, but it may as well not exist insofar as everyone is concerned -- the toxic gases and atmospheric pressure will kill anyone diving below the level of the cities long before they'll catch so much as a glimpse.
112	* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'':
113	** The Elemental Plane of Air is an endless volume of air scattered through with storms the size of worlds, immense floating spheres of bronze and iron, the flying cities of the djinn, and floating masses of rock and ice where most non-elemental beings make their homes.
114	** The Immortal Ambulatory, Apsu's divine realm, resembles a large volume of air containing numerous flying islands, each topped with a biome tailored to the preferences of a species of metallic dragon.
115	** ''Tabletopgame/{{Starfinder}}'' features a number of floating platforms and colonies on the gas giant planets of Liavara and Bretheda, and even a few -- known as the Burning Archipelago -- floating over the surface of the sun.
116	* ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'': Jupiter has sky islands that form in the atmosphere from collected debris. The islands become a haven for various fast breeding creatures for the short time before they sink under their own weight deeper into the atmosphere.
117	%%* ''TabletopGame/SkyrealmsOfJorune'': Multiple floating islands provide the name of the game.
118	* ''TabletopGame/TheStrange'': Mandala Zero is a collection of city skyscrapers and smaller buildings, each floating through a starry void on a separate mote of crumbling earth that holds the building's foundations.
119	%%* ''TabletopGame/SunderedSkies'' is set in such a world.
120	* ''TabletopGame/SwashbucklersOfTheSevenSkies'' takes place within a dome thousands of miles across, filled with floating islands ranging from near-continents with their own seas to tiny islets. There's a region called the Sky of Stones filled with floating boulders.
121	* ''TabletopGame/{{Warbirds}}'' is set in Azure, which consists of a handful of regions from Earth whisked away in the early 19th century and suspended forever in the sky thanks to a mysterious gravity-negating substance called floatstone. The "sky" it floats in is only breathable to a certain depth: the deeper you go, the more it's dominated by heavy inert gases and gaseous hydrocarbons, which provides [[DieselPunk a useful supply of diesel]] for all those {{Cool Plane}}s the AcePilot player characters fly around in.
122	* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'':
123	** The setting features an entire planet of floating islands, some about the size of a pebble, others entire cities. Of course, these Islands are floating in orbit around a black hole, so yeah...
124	** Also the Vespid homeworld, which is described as an immense gas giant with islands of rock floating at levels in the atmosphere where [[ShownTheirWork displacement would dictate that they float]] in the super-dense gasses.
125	* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'': The Mortal Realms tend to become increasingly saturated by their magic, and thus increasingly alien and fantastical, the more one approaches their edges. Worlds of this sort become fairly common in their outer reaches, where the landscape fragments into islands and continents, some large enough to hold seas, floating through the void.
126	[[/folder]]
127
128	[[folder:Video Games]]
129	* ''VideoGame/AraFell'' features a series of floating continents, on one of which the story takes place. In the storyline of the [[CutShort aborted sequels]], [[spoiler:these continents are revealed to be a prison created by the all-around evil Shadow Spawn and on which all living creatures dwell, and their collapse is the story's final aim.]]
130	* ''VideoGame/{{Ballance}}'' is set in a world of platforms high up in the sky. Whatever is down on the ground is not visible, but the occasional presence of long support poles reaching down into the clouds suggests that ''something'' is down there.
131	* ''VideoGame/BahamutLagoon'' takes place almost entirely on floating continents, called "lagoons".
132	* ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'':
133	** The first game takes place on several islands floating above the Earth, which was tainted during the [[GreatOffscreenWar War of the Gods]] to the point where it became uninhabitable.
134	** ''VideoGame/BatenKaitosOrigins'' expands on this premise. [[spoiler:Not only do you learn the Earth beneath the Taintclouds is very much inhabited and [[DarkIsNotEvil actually quite pleasant if a little gloomy]], but you also get to travel back in time and not only witness but take part in the War of the Gods.]]
135	* ''VideoGame/{{Battleborn}}'': As a result of the mysterious force keeping Ekkunar, homeworld of the Eldrid somehow stable despite being {{shattered\|World}}, there are various chunks of land of varying sizes that float in mid-air.
136	* As per the page quote, ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' takes place in a sprawling airborne city called Columbia, which is vast enough to essentially embody this trope. It hangs just above the clouds, held aloft by some vaguely-defined quantum technology.
137	* ''VideoGame/{{Bug\|1995}}'' has each level look like a series of huge FloatingPlatforms, and if you fell off any of them, you went splat.. in mid-air, as there was actually no ground below. [[spoiler:Subverted as the entire level took place on a stage set, as Bug was a movie star]].
138	* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'': The Shadow Shard, a [[ShatteredWorld world shattered]] by a mad godlike being (it's implied that this world is an alternate version of Earth). It's also implied that the entire Shadow Shard is really inside the ''mind'' of said "god" and that the non-human inhabitants are all fractions of his shattered psyche.
139	* ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'': Not in the game itself, but a series of Grimoire cards from the Dark Below exapansion tells the story of a world called Fundament that was like this; it turns out a planet got caught in the gravity well of a gas giant, and broken up chunks formed into inhabitable floating continents. It was a major DeathWorld to boot, with EverythingTryingToKillYou. At one point, three sisters got the idea to take a ship deep into the planet's core... [[spoiler:and the [[EldritchAbomination Worm Gods]], who had been [[SealedEvilInACan trapped there]]. A DealWithTheDevil for immortality and power turned them into what would eventually become the Hive]].
140	%%* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestMonsters'': World 4 in the second game.
141	%%* ''VideoGame/TheEmperorsNewGroove'' Platform/PlayStation game.
142	* In ''VideoGame/EverQuest'', there exists the Plane of Sky, the planar realm of Veeshan -- the Goddess of the Sky. It consists of multiple floating islands that the players must advance through one by one. In ''VideoGame/EverquestII'', the cataclysmic events that befell the world of Norrath results in many parts of the Plane of Sky to leak into the realm of Norrath. The ''Kingdom of Sky'' expansion pack is filled with numerous floating islands, Owl and Vulture versions of the Aviak race, numerous dragons, and other wonders.
143	* ''VideoGame/ExaPico'': ''Ar tonelico'':
144	** Ever since the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Grathnode Inferia]], the floating continent flocks of [[VideoGame/ArTonelicoMelodyOfElemia Sol Ciel]], [[VideoGame/ArTonelicoIIMelodyOfMetafalica Metafalss]] and [[VideoGame/ArTonelicoQogaKnellOfArCiel Sol Cluster]] (each preserved from destruction only by its central Server Tower) are the only habitable place in Ar Ciel, what with the Sea of Death below and the plasma Blastline above.
145	** Metafalss isn't even a continent. The people are living on the mechanism that was supposed to build the Tower for temporary use. During the course of the game, they [[spoiler:create an entirely new floating continent separate from the Tower because Metafalss was quite literally falling apart.]] The only tower that was actually designed from the start to live on was the First Tower, Sol Ciel.
146	%%* ''VideoGame/{{Fairune}}'': The Sky on top of the Administrator's Tower, [[spoiler:and Sky Land in 2.]]
147	* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'': The setting is a flat world over an unknown void. In ''The Lost Age'', part of the major plot twist is that the flat world is ''eroding'', and the antagonists of the first game were [[WellIntentionedExtremist trying to stop this process by any means possible]] because ''their'' [[DoomedHometown hometown is already on the brink]].
148	* ''VideoGame/TheGranstreamSaga'' takes place on 4 floating islands (and a huge flying battleship), one for each element: Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth in that order.
149	* ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'' has the Sky Realm, where majority of the story takes place. The citizens are known as sky dwellers, and the main method of transportation between the islands is by flying on airships. Additionally, the main crew's goal is to reach Estalucia in the Astral Plane, which is another world in the sky higher than the Sky Realm.
150	* ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'': The "border world" of Xen consists of strange islands floating through a nebulous void.
151	* In ''VideoGame/HoshigamiRuiningBlueEarth'', the entire known world is a floating continent. And every time someone uses magic, it saps a little of the energy of the elemental spirits holding the continent up.
152	* ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptunia'': Each nation in Gamindustri floats in the sky in its own landmass, connected to the others by cables. There's no know landmass below. Other games set Gamindustri on continents surrounded by oceans, however.
153	* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVIIThePrincelessBride'': The land of Etheria is made of floating, beautifully vegetated rocks in the sky.
154	* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'', the inhabitants of Skyloft think their world is this, but they're really just a FloatingContinent above a more normal world.
155	* The ''VideoGame/LittleTailBronx'' series takes place on floating islands that the inhabitants travel between using airships. The surface world is blocked by an electrified cloud sea. ''VideoGame/SolatoroboRedTheHunter'' reveals that they're [[spoiler:the remnants of a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic Earth]].]]
156	* ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}'': This is the premise behind at least two planets, possibly three or four:
157	** Megadom is a gas giant that contains at least one FloatingContinent, with all of its inhabitants living on that continent. Unlike the usual examples of that trope, there is no ground underneath.
158	** Brabbit is simply a mass of ionized gas with seemingly no central core. It has somehow developed a population of sentient, intelligent gas clouds that float freely within it.
159	** Yooj and Bavoom have descriptions that imply there is solid ground on these planets, but they are never actually visible in-game. Neither planet's civilizations actually use any solid ground anyway, as they have been adapted to drift about in their planets' extremely strong winds for their entire lives, never needing to land.
160	* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'':
161	** The "Floating" map type in Indev, the game's first publicly available version, generated the world as a cluster of islands floating in empty space. Other world settings would turn this floating archipelago into either a flat square cluster, a long line, or a vertical "stack" of islands where the bottom ones would be cast in perpetual shadow by the upper ones. Waterfalls and lavafalls pouring into the void were common features.
162	** The End is a dimension that consists of islands made of a type of pale yellow stone that float in an endless gray void. You can find obsidian towers on the central island and the occasional purple stone tower on the outer islands. It's also the home dimension of the Endermen.
163	%%** There's also the old fan-made map "skylands". No points for guessing why it's called that.
164	** ''VideoGame/TheAether'' mod adds a dimension made up entirely of floating continents in a sky above nothing solid.
165	** The "Skyblock" challenge map is technically a FloatingContinent, but the surroundings have been completely erased for several hundred blocks in all directions in order to leave the player stranded on... well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a block in the sky]].
166	* ''VideoGame/MinecraftStoryMode'' Season 1 Episode 5, "Order Up!", features a CityOfGold built in the skies called "Sky City" as the main setting of the episode. The concept of the setting is heavily inspired by the "Skyblock" minigame/challenge mentioned above.
167	* ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'':
168	** ''VideoGame/MystIIIExile'': Narayan uses this concept, with lighter-than-air inflatable pods keeping chunks of vegetation afloat.
169	** ''VideoGame/MystIVRevelation'': The ''Age of Spire'' consists of giant floating mountains in orbit around what looks like a neutron star. The physics are sufficiently well-described to trigger ''massive'' fan speculation on exactly how it works. [[AllThereInTheManual Supplemental materials]] explain that when the core of the world became too magnetically active, the planet tore itself into pieces as the core pushed away the rest of the planet. Now the fragments' aggregate gravity pulling inward is in equilibrium with the magnetic push outward. Fortunately for Sirrus, the fragments also had enough gravitational mass to keep an atmosphere.
170	* ''VideoGame/{{Netstorm}}: Islands at War'' is set on Nimbus, a world of flying islands that the inhabitants maneuver to fight the occupants of other islands. Note that the islands themselves never move relative to each other during the actual game, they are just land on which you can build. They also can't be destroyed (but the things you build on them certainly can). Making scientific sense was not high on the agenda.
171	* ''VideoGame/TheNeverhood'' and other locations in the same universe float in a vast, mostly-empty blackness. The Hall of Records actually explains why this is, but it's hard to get through because it's just ''so freaking long''.
172	* The entire world of ''VideoGame/{{Owlboy}}'' seems to be a bunch of floating islands. [[spoiler:It's because the Hex, created by the Owls, started making them float. As Otus finds out later, they're still going up, towards outer space.]]
173	* ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Pokémon Platinum]]'': the Distortion World consists of floating islands, not all of which share the same gravitational orientation. At one point you get to Surf ''vertically'' between two islands.
174	* ''VideoGame/ProjectNomads'' is set in a ruined steampunk world, where people pilot floating chunks of land.
175	* ''VideoGame/RageOfMages'' uses the "long ago there was a cataclysm that shattered the world into floating islands, but some great mage or other managed to prevent it from falling apart completely". Oddly enough, this property of the world is more backstory than anything, as the locations look pretty much like you'd expect a typical fantasy world to look (forests, deserts, snow wastes, ''active volcanoes'') and the characters are almost never confronted with "world's edge".
176	* The ''VideoGame/RaysMaze'' series of VideoGame/WorldBuilder graphical adventure games includes a setting known as "The Void", which is made up of hunks of dirt and rock varying in size between a pebble and a large island floating in a breathable atmosphere. Presumably infinite in size, it appears as though it even rains there, and falling off whatever you're standing on is a common way to die. While flying between islands is pretty much unknown (the "jump doors" of the series are the primary means of transport), two prominent features of the setting are the LostTechnology left behind by the {{Precursors}} and the giant [[FantasticVoyagePlot voidbeast]].
177	* ''VideoGame/{{Sacrifice}}'': The setting features several floating islands in a vast void. This is only vaguely explained as "In the early days when the world was [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt torn asunder]] terrible magical energies were released and blah blah blah blah blah..." [[LemonyNarrator and yes, it actually says the blahs]].
178	* ''VideoGame/{{Samorost}}'' and ''Samorost 2'' take place in a world like this except IN SPACE with very unusual islands/planets including ones that seem to made of giant driftwood. ''VideoGame/{{Machinarium}}'' takes place in the same world though seemingly on a much larger landmass (which also has a sky, unlike the ones from Samorost).
179	%%* ''VideoGame/SepterraCore'': Septerra. Its shape (and purpose) plays a part in the storyline.
180	* ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' would be the most obvious example, although there are hints that it may not always have been that way. Though there is solid ground below, it's not habitable and no-one even knows it's there until events late in the game.
181	* ''VideoGame/{{Skylanders}}'' takes place in the floating realm of Skylands. There have apparently been attempts to find the bottom, but they've either ended in failure or the explorer never came back.
182	%%* ''VideoGame/{{Skyrates}}'', set in the land of Skytopia, is entirely made of these.
183	* ''VideoGame/{{Spellforce}}'' uses the "long ago there was a cataclysm that shattered the world into floating islands, but some great mage or other managed to prevent it from falling apart completely". Oddly enough, this property of the world is more backstory than anything, as the locations look pretty much like you'd expect a typical fantasy world to look (forests, deserts, snow wastes, ''active volcanoes'') and the characters are almost never confronted with "world's edge". At least it's little more than a HandWave for why the game world is composed of a number of completely disparate maps that can only be reached via portals -- the technical reason being that it uses RealTimeStrategy style maps coupled with RolePlayingGame style backtracking, and this is what it ends up looking like.
184	* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'': Some planets appear to be floating in a blue sky with nothing below them, although the level select map places them very, ''very'' far above the games' world. In the actual levels, there are blue skies and clouds, and sometimes faint multitudes of stars, in all directions. In these regions of the universe, space itself resembles a surreal version of Earth's daytime sky, with planets, moons, asteroids, artificial constructs and sometimes even stars floating around in it. It is possibly the most literal image of this trope.
185	* ''VideoGame/SurfaceTheSoaringCity'': The bonus-play segment reveals that its FloatingContinent used to be one of many, until a mysterious force began disintegrating them one by one.
186	* The setting of ''VideoGame/{{Temtem}}'' is the Airborne Archipelago, a series of floating islands orbiting around a star called the Pan-Sun.
187	%%* ''VideoGame/TetrisWorlds'': Apparently ''Hotline Tetris'' leads to such a world.
188	%%** ''VideoGame/TimeOfDefiance'' is built around this trope.
189	* ''VideoGame/WerewolfTheApocalypseEarthblood'': The Umbral Realm to which Yfen moves Cahal and Graner's forces during Endron's second attack on the Caern is a land of floating islands of earth amidst a misty white sky.
190	* ''VideoGame/Wizard101'' is a mixture of this and ShatteredWorld. It use to be a single world but fighting between the Titans broke it apart and the islands are currently held in orbit by magic.
191	* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': Outland consists of the blasted shards of Draenor, home of the orcs and ogres, which now hang suspended in an interdimensional void. The Skywall and Firelands sections of the Elemental Plane, as seen in some dungeons, raids, and daily zones, give this idea as well.
192	* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': Alrest consists of a seemingly endless sky, called the Cloud Sea. The only solid land in the setting exists on the backs of colossal beasts called Titans, which swim on the surface of the Cloud Sea and provide homes for human nations and wild ecosystems alike. However, the Titans are reaching the end of their lifespans, after which they sink into the depths of the Cloud Sea. The gradual loss of livable land, the various nations of the Titans growing uneasy and edging closer to war and the looming threat of the end of the world are the main drivers of the plot.
193	[[/folder]]
194
195	[[folder:Webcomics]]
196	* ''Webcomic/{{Cloudscratcher}}'': Everyone lives on tall plateaus. The land in between is completely covered in [[spoiler:at least two layers of]] clouds, and is extremely dangerous (although it's possible to turn a big profit by going down there to scavenge wrecked aircraft).
197	* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'' has Throne, the hub of Creation, which [[http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/844/ floats]] in an infinite black emptiness. Oddly, there is also the {{Void\|BetweenTheWorlds}} outside all of the setting's universes, but [[http://killsixbilliondemons.tumblr.com/post/152038960200/whats-outside-throne-it-kind-looks-like-theyre nobody knows]] whether it's the same thing or not.
198	* ''Webcomic/{{Kukuburi}}'''s flipside world has floating islands on the top ''and'' bottom (the mainland's equator is the gravity plane both "above" and "below"). [[http://www.kukuburi.com/v2/2007/08/21/ten/ A first glimpse.]]
199	%%* ''Webcomic/UnicornJelly'': The universe of Tryslmaistan. The author's notes provide extensive explanation of how the local physics allow this.
200	[[/folder]]
201
202	[[folder:Web Original]]
203	%%* ''WebOriginal/TheClockworkRaven'': Castle Nashido and its surrounding "sky kingdoms" .
204	* ''WebAnimation/{{Dreamscape}}'': The Sky Dimension. It was similar to a FluffyCloudHeaven, complete with angel guards wielding flaming swords. However, thanks to Curien and Ethan's meddling, a dark rift formed there. The angel guards couldn't stop it, so they had to seal the Sky Dimension away. This worked for awhile, but Ethan and Curien went at it again, and released the Overlord of Evil from its confines.
205	* ''Website/OrionsArm'': Inhabited gas giants (e.g. Jupiter, Saturn), ice giants (e.g. Uranus, Neptune) and Cytherean planets (e.g. Venus) are like this. Because this setting aims to be as realistic as possible, the landmasses are artificial instead of natural, using balloons to remain in the air: for this reason they are known as "[[https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4f181b2caeccf bubblehabs]]".
206	[[/folder]]
207
208	[[folder:Western Animation]]
209	* ''WesternAnimation/BabyFollies'': Baby City is located high up in the sky above even the clouds, borderlines on FluffyCloudHeaven with a baby/toddler theme.
210	* ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'': The four main sectors of Lyoko are composed of floating islands above the Digital Sea. The Mountain Sector, in particular, evokes this trope.
211	* ''WesternAnimation/DragonHunters'' ("''Chasseurs de dragons''") is set in a dense archipelago of floating islands floating in an infinite skyscape. There's a definite "downward" direction, meaning you can fall off or jump off an island, and there are {{waterfall\|IntoTheAbyss}}s. Populated fragments range in size from those sufficient for a house and small farm to those the size of a good-sized island, and even pebbles may float in the air over the surface of bigger landmasses. (It is never explained why some stones float and others don't, but hey, [[RuleOfCool it looks cool]].) Some populated fragments are tethered together with rope bridges. Uncommon in such settings, magic in ''Dragon Hunters'' is almost nonexistent, and where it exists it is part of the scenery, such as an enchanted fairy-tale spring or monsters breathing fire. The characters have clockwork and [[BambooTechnology bamboo]] technology but no steam tech or magic items. One episode has the heroes dealing with [[GeniusLoci an island]]-[[TurtleIsland shaped dragon]] so rare it is considered a myth. After it's killed, it floats away as Lian-Chu says (paraphrased) "A dragon dies, an island is born", implying that some, if not all, of the {{Floating Continent}}s are dead dragons of that species.
212	%%* ''WesternAnimation/EllieTheAce'' has the land of Lockhart.
213	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Skyland}}'' takes place a couple centuries in the future when the world has been torn apart into floating "blocks" rotating around the Earth's previous core.
214	* ''WesternAnimation/StormHawks'': The surface of the world of Atmos is largely made up of extremely dangerous and uninhabitable grounds known as the Wastelands. Civilization is largely set on terras, mountainous landmasses that reach above the cloud layer over the Wastelands. The different terras range in size from large enough for a big city to small enough for a farm or two.
215	%%* ''WesternAnimation/TinyPlanets'': The Tiny Planet of Self.
216	[[/folder]]
217
218	[[folder:Real Life]]
219	* Gases may leave a planet's atmosphere but stay near the planet's orbit, forming a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_torus gas torus.]] At least two such clouds are observed in Solar system: Jupiter's moon Io and Saturn's Enceladus, and similar doughnut may exist for Saturn's Titan. The former two have weak gravity (allowing quick gas loss), active volcanoes (allowing them to replenish what was lost) and orbit a primary with a strong magnetic field. Of course, none of them would allow Earth-like life, but it was the study of Io's plasma torus that inspired Niven's ''Integral Trees'' novels. While highly unlikely, it isn't entirely impossible for the torus to have thick breathable atmosphere.
220	[[/folder]]
221

Context Main / WorldInTheSky