History Main / CityOfGold

* The videogame TropeCodifier is the classic ''VideoGame/SevenCitiesOfGold'' by (then) Dan Bunten, which had the players taking on the role of European explorers visiting North America for the first time, with rumors of the Cities of Gold as their motivation. They can either co-operate or subjugate the Native Americans, with the expected consequences for either choice.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode ''[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E23InspirationManifestation Inspiration Manifestation]]'', Rarity paves all the streets in town with gold, which ends up blinding a lot of ponies due to the suns reflection.

* ''[[Literature/TwentyOneBalloons The Twenty-One Balloons]]'' focuses on a hidden society built around a gigantic diamond mine. They bankroll their utopian society by selling diamonds to the outside world and are smart enough to hide the extent and source of their wealth, selling only small amounts on a given expedition and switching ports routinely.

* The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan is the TropeMaker. While the city was not made of gold, its largest pyramids were actually plated with gold. The Aztecs also liked to use gold for artistic purposes, as it is obviously very flashy and immensely easy to work with.

This is a place where what we consider wealth -- precious metals, jewels, ivory, cappuccinos, iPods, etc. -- are everywhere and in great abundance. Even the "beggars" are rich and the most ramshackle building could put a pharaoh's tomb to shame. And the kings? They'd make Croesus green with envy. ComicBook/RichieRich would probably find the place ostentatious and tacky. It makes FluffyCloudHeaven look [[AsceticAesthetic practically spartan]] in comparison. When people say it's where the roads are paved with gold, they're talking ''[[LiteralMetaphor literally]]''. In some cases, even the ''inhabitants themselves'' are made of gold. Visitors like the IntrepidMerchant, MrViceGuy and GuileHero may become rich after visiting this place with little more than a pouch full of the [[AllNaturalGemPolish precious gems lying on the ground]], it's so rich. We could go on, but basically this is the TreasureRoom as an entire city or even country.

* Asgard is depicted as this in the ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'', its capital being pretty much entirely gold encased. ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' addresses this, bringing up Asgard's buried history of brutal conquest, with [[BigBad Hela]] pointing out, [[ArmourPiercingQuestion "Where do you think all of this gold]] ''[[ArmourPiercingQuestion came]]'' [[ArmourPiercingQuestion from?"]]

This is a place where what we consider wealth-- precious metals, jewels, ivory, cappuccinos, ipods, etc-- are everywhere and in great abundance. Even the "beggars" are rich and the most ramshackle building could put a pharaoh's tomb to shame. And the kings? They'd make Croesus green with envy. ComicBook/RichieRich would probably find the place ostentatious and tacky. It makes FluffyCloudHeaven look [[AsceticAesthetic practically spartan]] in comparison. When people say it's where the roads are paved with gold, they're talking ''[[LiteralMetaphor literally]]''. In some cases, even the ''inhabitants themselves'' are made of gold. Visitors like the IntrepidMerchant, MrViceGuy and GuileHero may become rich after visiting this place with little more than a pouch full of the [[AllNaturalGemPolish precious gems lying on the ground]], it's so rich. We could go on, but basically this is the TreasureRoom as an entire city or even country.

** Note that gold makes good ''connectors'' (unlike most metals, it doesn't form an oxidized surface film), but as a conductor it's only about 70% as good as copper (whereas silver is about 10% ''better'' than copper). It's just that neither copper nor silver exist in large quantity [[ItMakesSenseInContext in the sky]].

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_the_Caesars The City of the Caesars]] was a mythical South American city filled with gold, silver and diamonds.
* In ''Literature/TheVoyageOfStBrendan'', all stones in the Land of Promise are gemstones. St. Brendan and his monks are too spiritually minded to fill their pockets, until an angel appears and advises them to load their boat with the fruits and the gems of the Land or Promise, so they will have tangible proof of their story when they return.

* Literature/DickWhittington travels to London because the streets are supposed to be paved with gold, but in that story it turns out to be a figure of speech.

*** "Like glass" most likely refers to shine rather than transparency. Gold at the period the passage was written wasn't always very pure, and could be rather dull, while clear glass was a rarity, but was kept in good shine, since it was an important status symbol.

* ''[[Literature/TwentyOneBalloons The Twenty-One Balloons]]'' focuses on a hidden society built around a gigantic diamond mine. They bankroll their utopian society by selling diamonds to the outside world, and are smart enough to hide the extent and source of their wealth, selling only small amounts on a given expedition and switching ports routinely.

* Creator/DesmondBagley's novel ''Literature/TheViveroLetter'' involves a lost Mayan city called Uaxuanoc, which the protagonist and his companions are searching for, following a letter written by a Spanish conquistador named de Vivero to his sons describing a city with buildings literally covered in gold, urging them to gather an expedition and find it. The letter came accompanied by two gold seemingly innocuous trays that turn out to be two halves of a TreasureMap leading to the city. Later on, though, when the protagonist asks his archaeologist companions about the gold, he gets laughed at. The archaeologists never bought the gold part for a second, knowing that the Yucatan Peninsula doesn't have any gold deposits thanks to its geological structure. All gold the Mayans had was accumulated through trade and conquest for many centuries. However, TheMafia following them might not know that. [[spoiler:Subverted in that the guy in charge of TheMafia expedition understands this but also knows the archaeological value of artifacts found at the site, especially on the black market]]. The real reason de Vivero lied to his sons was because he fully understood that only the glint of gold could get them to undertake such a journey halfway across the world. In fact, what he wanted them to see was [[spoiler:the image of Jesus seemingly etched on the side of a mountain, which is nothing more than a strange coincidence]].

[[folder: Live Action TV]]
* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' story "Revenge of the Cybermen" concerns Voga, an ''asteroid'' that's made of gold. The Cybermen want to destroy it, because gold--a metal which never corrodes--can be used to plate their breathing apparatus and suffocate them.

** Yu-Shan, the City of Heaven, is a place where prayer congeals into substance that can be easily shaped into virtually every substance imaginable. Quintessence forms from general prayers to no specific deity, and is almost freely available as a form of welfare state (although the materials made from it are temporary). Ambrosia forms from prayers to particular gods (and is also tithed to the King of Heaven to serve as payment in the CelestialBureaucracy), and not only makes permanent substances, but also magical ones. Despite this, Heaven still experiences degrees of poverty for gods who were rendered unemployed in the [[ApocalypseHow recent world-dissolving disasters]], and barely get by on the paltry feasts that their allotment of quintessence allows.
** Anybody who can get [[DueToTheDead a decent funeral]] can live like a king in the Underworld, since items buried or burned as part of the rites appears in the Underworld as magical or lavish food and items, loyal and hardworking soldiers or animals, or personal slaves (if human sacrifice is performed). An enterprising Solar ghost once realised that luxury was the norm down there, and that his mercantile interests would instead need to trade in prayers and sacrifice (things that have invigorating and narcotic effects on ghosts).

* The Imperial Palace from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Like most important things in The Imperium, it's decked out in gold, covers most of the Tibetan Plateau and Indo-Gangetic Plain, and is visible from ''Mars''.

* In ''WebComic/{{Homestuck}}'', Prospit is not only a literal yellow dream moon, the citizens are kinder than the ones on Derse and even the prisons are implied to be 'a joke'. One of its [=OSTs=] is even called 'The Golden Towers'.
* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': Legend says that the streets of Throne, the city at the center of all universes, are paved with gold. Apparently they ''were'', but [[SoiledCityOnAHill as Throne is no longer the perfect heaven it once was]], the gold has long since been scraped away. A few bricks show up every once in a while as collector's items.

* The Mali Empire in west Africa was an excellent example around the 14th century. It's estimated that ''half'' of the gold in circulation in the old world at the time came from Mali. When the emperor Mansa Musa made a pilgrimage to Mecca in the mid-14th century he brought along so much gold -- and spent and donated so lavishly -- that he actually devastated the Mediterranean economy for a decade due to runaway inflation. (To his credit he recognized the problem and bought up as much gold as possible in Cairo to try and reduce the supply.)

* Asgard is depicted as this in ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'', its capital being pretty much entirely gold encased. ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' addresses this, bringing up Asgard's buried history of brutal conquest, with [[BigBad Hela]] pointing out, [[ArmourPiercingQuestion "Where do you think all of this gold]] ''[[ArmourPiercingQuestion came]]'' [[ArmourPiercingQuestion from?"]]

* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': Legend says that the streets of Throne, the city at the center of all universes, are paved with gold. Apparently they ''were'' once, but [[SoiledCityOnAHill as Throne is no longer the perfect heaven it once was]], the gold has long since been scraped away. A few bricks apparently show up every once in a while as collector's items.

* The beast from the Genesis song "A Trick Of The Tail" claims to have come from a city of gold.

* ''Literature/TheTamuli'' has a variant: the capital of the Tamul Empire is entirely sheathed in mother-of-pearl, in a case of decorative exuberance gone way out of hand. Everyone has to wear special slippers, and the emperor points out that it's hideously expensive to maintain, as it has to be almost completely redone every time there's a storm.

* A miser dies and brings his most treasured posession to heaven: a massive brick of solid gold. At the gates, St. Peter says, "What? You brought pavement?"

* The mythical [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Cities_of_Gold_(myth) Seven Cities of Gold]], sought by conquistadors. Francisco Vásquez de Coronado found two of them, Cíbola and Quivira, but both were just ordinary little villages.

* The Golden City of Lanka from Myth/HinduMythology, once populated by [[SoiledCityOnAHill decadetent Demons]]and the capital of the infamous Demon King Ravan, until the hero Ram (one of Vishnu's Avatars) deposed him and put his righteous turncoat brother in charge. Sometimes identified with the actual island of Sri Lanka, which used to be famous for being rich in precious stones.

* Creator/DesmondBagley's novel ''Literature/TheViveroLetter'' involves a lost Mayan city called Uaxuanoc, which the protagonist and his companions are searching for, following a letter written by a Spanish conquistador named de Vivero to his sons describing a city with buildings literally covered in gold, urging them to gather an expedition and find it. The letter came accompanied by two gold seemingly innocuous trays that turn out to be two halves of a TreasureMap leading to the city. Later on, though, when the protagonist asks his archaeologist companions about the gold, he gets laughed at. The archaeologists never bought the gold part for a second, knowing that the Yucatan Peninsula doesn't have any gold deposits thanks to its geological structure. All gold the Mayans had was accumulated through trade and conquest for many centuries. However, TheMafia following them might not know that. [[spoiler:Subverted in that the guy in charge of TheMafia expedition understands this but also knows the archaeological value of artifacts found at the site, especially on the black market]]. The real reason de Viveo lied to his sons was because he fully understood that only the glint of gold could get them to undertake such a journey halfway across the world. In fact, what he wanted them to see was [[spoiler:the image of Jesus seemingly etched on the side of a mountain, which is nothing more than a strange coincidence]].

* In a downplayed example there were a number of countries that were considered this by the countries around. Medieval China, especially [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27an Chang'an]] (now known as Xian) during the Tang Dyanasty and [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople Constantinople]] are just two examples. This was partly due to travelers tales and partly because there was a relative difference in wealth.

This is a place where what we consider wealth-- precious metals, jewels, ivory, cappuccinos, ipods, etc-- are everywhere and in great abundance. Even the "beggars" are rich and the most ramshackle building could put a pharaoh's tomb to shame. And the kings? They'd make Croesus green with envy. ComicBook/RichieRich would probably find the place ostentatious and tacky. It makes FluffyCloudHeaven look [[AsceticAesthetic practically spartan]] in comparison. When people say it's where the roads are paved with gold, they're talking ''[[LiteralMetaphor literally]]''. In some cases cases, even the ''inhabitants themselves'' are made of gold. Visitors like the IntrepidMerchant, MrViceGuy and GuileHero may become rich after visiting this place with little more than a pouch full of the [[AllNaturalGemPolish precious gems lying on the ground]], it's so rich. We could go on, but basically this is the TreasureRoom as an entire city or even country.

This is a place where what we consider wealth-- precious metals, jewels, ivory, cappuccinos, ipods, etc-- are everywhere and in great abundance. Even the "beggars" are rich and the most ramshackle building could put a pharaoh's tomb to shame. And the kings? They'd make Croesus green with envy. ComicBook/RichieRich would probably find the place ostentatious and tacky. It makes FluffyCloudHeaven look [[AsceticAesthetic practically spartan]] in comparison. When people say it's where the roads are paved with gold, they're talking ''[[LiteralMetaphor literally]]''. Visitors like the IntrepidMerchant, MrViceGuy and GuileHero may become rich after visiting this place with little more than a pouch full of the [[AllNaturalGemPolish precious gems lying on the ground]], it's so rich. We could go on, but basically this is the TreasureRoom as an entire city or even country.

* World 5-S5 (El Dorado) of SuperMarioFusionRevival, which is named after the lost city itself. A Ghost NPC warns the player about being too greedy at one point.

* The Imperial Palace from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Like most important things in The Imperium, it's decked out in gold, covers more than half of Europe, and is visible from ''Mars''.

* A fairly common trope in various [[ComicBook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck Uncle Scrooge]] and DonaldDuck stories. The Gilded Man is far more interested in silver than gold -- while the ducks themselves are actually after a [[MacGuffin rare postage stamp]]. ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987''' [[FiveEpisodePilot Valley of Golden Suns]] has a ridiculous amount of gold, while a WesternAnimation/DuckTales comic "The Doomed of Sarras" had an exoplanet with an entire desert of WorthlessYellowRocks. The Uncle Scrooge story "Filthy Rich" features "beggars" in Upper Crustovia with the sign "Please give! Needy family! Down to our last billion dollars!" There have to be many more examples.