History Main / TheWallAroundTheWorld

* In the first and second seasons of ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', the world Lina could explore (and put craters into) was restricted by a magical barrier that went down after the BigBad powering it was killed.

* In the oneshot manga ''Island'', by Komi Naoshi, the town the main characters live in is surrounded by a huge wall, much like a well. When the islanders turn 14, they are shown the truth- outside their island is nothing but a vast sea. [[spoiler:The islanders believe that all the land in the world sunk and thus all other countries were drowned, making it useless to go outside the island. It turns out that only the island sank, probably because of land subsidence and earthquakes.]]
* Tokyo Jupiter in ''Anime/RahXephon'', encasing Tokyo ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin and looking like Jupiter]]).
* A variety occurs in ''Anime/AngelBeats''. There's no literal wall, but the world around the high school complex just disappears into a thick fog once you travel beyond the hills.
* The "spiritual barrier" around the village in ''Literature/FromTheNewWorld''. The humans inside the barrier are told never to cross it, because the outside world is full of horrific monsters. [[spoiler:They are taught this so that their subconscious telekinesis will only create said monsters outside the barrier. The barrier keeps bad things out ''and'' imprisons the characters, by necessity.]]
* In ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', the remnants of humanity live inside an area protected by three absolutely massive ring walls. All the lands outside are claimed by man-eating giants that have hunted humanity to near extinction. The plot of the series is kicked off when the walls begin to fail...
** There's also a kind of layered example in how each wall has a quartet of towns situated just outside of it (surrounded by an extended semicircle), serving partially as a waystation in the major gates of the walls, but mostly as a cost reducing factor by baiting the Titans into easily monitored concentrations just outside the towns (the walls there being thinner than the rest). Although there are government incentives to settle such towns, it's offset by needing to live with the constant visual reminder of their enclosure. At least before the first one falls.

* Meta-example. The universe in which ''Anime/GlassFleet'' takes place is described as a "closed space". The exact details are unclear, but one thing ''is'' made clear: it's ''shrinking'' as more and more of it crosses the event horizon of the Black Cross: a massive black hole.
* In ''Anime/BackArrow'', the entire continent of Lingalind is surrounded by a wall so massive, you can't see its top - it just blends into the sky. It's revered as God by the inhabitants and they believe that beyond it there's nothing but void. It's made quite explicit that saying otherwise is heresy and could get you killed. This belief is challenged by the title character, who insistently claims to have come from beyond the wall.

* ''ComicBook/SecretWars2015'': [[spoiler:After Dr. Doom cobbles together Battleworld from the remaining fragments of the multiverse, he sets up a wall ''made out of Ben Grimm'' to keep out uncontrollable monsters like the Marvel Zombies, Ultron, and Annihilus.]]

* In ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'', a queen was punished for her infidelity to her wizard-king husband by being transformed into a tortoise and having the archipelago on which she was born shrunk and put into a teacup she must constantly balance on her back. We briefly see the inhabitants of the archipelago, who have various myths and semi-scientific theories relating to the colossal white wall (the rim of the cup) surrounding their world. Several of their stories have elements of truth to them, though by and large the people simply accept the wall as a fact of life, and it barely features in their lives beyond having a rite-of-passage where a boy must touch it to become a man.
* The Veil (actually called a Wall in the original) in ''ComicBook/{{WITCH}}'' serves to keep a powerful evil, identified with [[BigBad Phobos]], on the world of Metamoor and keep the universe safe from him, with most people being able to get through the various portals but Phobos being apparently unable to. The Veil becomes unnecessary and is torn down once Phobos is captured and locked in the Tower of Mists.
* ''ComicBook/LegendsOfTheDeadEarth'':
** In ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' Annual #20, New Gotham is surrounded by a dome. The City Controllers tell the populace that it is for their own protection as the air outside New Gotham is poisonous. However, this is not true. The dome was constructed for the sole purpose of keeping the people inside the city.
** In ''[[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} The Power of Shazam!]]'' Annual #1, the city on Binderaan where [=CeCe=] Beck lives is located inside of a dome.
** In ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'' Annual #2, the first storyteller believes that Atlantis was a domed city on the surface of Old Earth.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/OverTheHedge'' the animals wake up in the spring to discover a huge hedge is now running through the middle of their forest, but the main plot of the film involves them finding a new housing community on the other side, and begin to use the humans that live there to their advantage to get their food.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* The forest containing ''Film/TheVillage'' is closed off from the outside world by a wall. Turns out there's a reason for that.

* The walls of Truman's enclosed world in ''Film/TheTrumanShow''.

* In the film version of ''Film/AeonFlux'' the survivors of the "industrial virus" (biological apocalypse) have lived in the walled city of Brenga for generations. The outer perimeter of the wall is periodically sprayed with some sort of poison to keep the outside world at bay.
* A (probably apocryphal) story about Creator/HarlanEllison's pitch for the first ''Franchise/StarTrek'' film claims that Ellison met with Paramount executives and provided an outline for an epic story which ended with the crew of the ''Enterprise'' traveling to the edge of the universe, encountering a massive wall there, blasting a hole through it with their phasers, and ''seeing the eye of God staring back at them''. Studio heads, however, were unimpressed, claiming that the premise wasn't "big enough", at which point Ellison stormed out of the meeting.

* In ''Film/TheThirteenthFloor'' the world has no physical wall around it but it does have an edge where the simulated nature is visible to the naked eye. People within the simulated world are just programmed to never think about going anywhere near that edge (of course there are exceptions...)
* In ''Film/SexMission'' the survivors of a DepopulationBomb -- only women (reproducing artificially) -- live in a deep mine and are afraid to venture outside, because all their periscope shows is a grey wasteland. [[spoiler:There is a literal wall around the periscope and the surface gate. With very convincing grey wasteland painted on it.]]

* ''{{Film/Stardust}}'' is a story about a wall that separates two worlds, one entrenched in magic and the other that is similar to our own.

* In Garth Nix's ''Literature/OldKingdom'' series, a huge, ancient and magic-infused wall separates the mundane, magic-free Ancelstierre (which resembles early 20th-century England) to the South from the MedievalStasis land of the Old Kingdom to the North. Passage across the wall from the Ancelstierre side is tightly regulated, with military checkpoints and watchtowers, though they're also watching for threats, particularly [[TheUndead undead ones]], coming from the Old Kingdom.

* The TropeNamer is a short story by Theodore R. Cogswell in which it separated a magic-dominated half of the world from a science-dominated one.
* In ''Literature/TheSwordOfTruth'' / ''Series/LegendOfTheSeeker'', there is an (almost impenetrable) great barrier around a region called "The Midlands", which is the central geography of the story.
** That barrier is also re-used in ''Naked Empire'' of the same series, to close off a group of people from the rest of the world.
* Creator/IanMcDonald's ''Out on Blue Six''--the city is surrounded by a giant Wall, and the protagonists explore to see what's on the other side. [[spoiler:Turns out--nothing but toxic waste.]]

* In the novel ''Literature/HardBoiledWonderlandAndTheEndOfTheWorld'', the End of the World sections take place in a town which has a wall around it, and once you come to the town you can't go outside the wall.
* If you only follow the first book, [[Literature/LandOfOz Oz]] would seem rather like this. The endless deadly desert surrounds Oz on all sides, isolating it rather nicely. Too bad later books place other magical kingdoms on the other side of a desert that seems rather more like a moat. Eventually, all the magic-users in Oz gather their power to put up a wall of invisibility, thus more permanently sealing off Oz.
* There's a short story by Arthur C. Clarke called "The Wall of Darkness" about a planet with a wall that divides it in half. The protagonist spends many years (and most of his wealth) building a staircase to climb the wall to see what's on the other side. [[spoiler:Turns out there is no other side, and the planet is essentially a 3D Möbius strip. The wall was created in the distant past to prevent people from trying to go to the other side, which tends to drive people mad.]]
%%* The Void in Creator/PeterFHamilton's ''Literature/VoidTrilogy''.
* A global glacier surrounds the only habitable continent on all of Literature/{{Darkover}}, literally called The Wall Around the World by the inhabitants.
* In ''Literature/TheSingerOfAllSongs'', the order of priestesses known as the Daughters of Taris live surrounded by a giant wall of ice. They are the only people who can use ice magic, so they control who can come in and out.

* In ''Literature/TheDosadiExperiment'' the whole planet is encased inside the "God Wall" [[DeflectorShields barrier]] as a part of said experiment. Not that it's ''completely'' impassable, but for [[TheMasquerade most people]] inside it is.
* The Land of Elyon, a children's series by Patrick Carman, has walls surrounding the inhabited cities and the roads that link them. The main character finds a way out of the walls, despite the fear of many of the other characters about what is beyond the walls.
* The Green Wall in Yevgeni Zamyatin's ''Literature/{{We}}'', separating the civilization of the One State from the forests around it, which in turn separate them from the rest of the world. We are given few and conflicting clues as to what actually may exist beyond the forest.
* Creator/TedChiang's ''Tower of Babylon'' is a speculative fiction short story where it's more of a ceiling [[spoiler:or floor]]. The vault of heaven is a literal stone roof to the universe, and the Babylonians have built a tower to talk to God, who they believe resides above it. [[spoiler:One of them makes it, only to emerge from a cavern deep in the Earth, back where he started--somewhat similar to the Clarke example above, the world loops back on itself.]] In another story, ''Exhalation'', the narrator mentions how he has "journeyed all the way to the edge of the world, and seen the solid chromium wall that extends from the ground up into the infinite sky."
* Marlen Haushofer's "The Wall" is about a woman one day waking up in a mountain valley with the whole valley suddenly surrounded by an invisible, impenetrable wall. With all life outside the wall apparently dead, the book deals with her trying to survive inside the valley. Wondering if she is the last human alive, she speculates about the origin of the wall, [[spoiler:which in the end is never revealed. She often thinks about trying to leave the valley, but can't bring herself to risk it. What happens to her in the end is left open to the reader.]]
* Creator/JimButcher's ''Literature/TheCinderSpires'' series has the Mesosphere, a thick layer of mist that covers the surface of the world, and is inhabited by some very large, very ''hungry'' things, and the titular Spires themselves; Two miles wide, tall enough to reach above the Mesosphere, and each populated by a nation of people who are, more often than not, overcome by agoraphobia if they ever actually go outside.
* ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'': Deconstructed by the Muraille, a series of fortresses connected by a wall meant to serve as the eastern border of Arcasia. Unfortunately, the finished product was AwesomeButImpractical: It could never be fully manned, and has been breached so many times that the whole thing has been abandoned.
* ''Literature/PerryRhodan'' uses this on a number of occasions (including a 'wall' around the entire ''Milky Way Galaxy'' that the protagonists had to deal with after losing a few hundred years in an unexpected stasis field while outside, once). There's also a more literal example in Wardall, a tide-locked planet with a wall running around its entire circumference following the terminator. The planet's former natives apparently lived ''inside'' said wall rather than on either side of it, not surprising considering the conditions there; by the time the issue set on the world opens, though, its only inhabitants are the surviving crew members of a crashed pirate vessel and their descendants.
* The wall separating Experiment House property from Narnia in ''Literature/TheSilverChair.''
* A literal example is the spherical Walls of the World from Creator/JRRTolkien's legendarium, which are only specifically described in ''Literature/TheHistoryOfMiddleEarth,'' although their existence is implied in ''Literature/TheSilmarillion''. The walls separate the world from the empty void of the Outer Dark, and are only pierced by a single Door of Night, created by the Valar to thrust [[BigBad Morgoth]] out until TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
* A large portion of the plot in Orson Scott Card's ''Literature/Pathfinder2010'' revolves around one of these. It's revealed decently early on that there are actually 19 "worlds" with Walls.

* There aren't any literal walls in ''Literature/TheCityOfEmber'', but there might as well be -- the only light comes from the city, as does all of the food and other necessities, making it impossible to leave. Nobody in the city knows what might exist outside of it, if there's anything there at all. [[spoiler:It turns out that the entire city is actually underground. The original builders included instructions for leaving the city to be used after a certain amount of time had passed, but they were lost and forgotten before they could be used, leaving the citizens trapped in a city with dwindling food and power supplies, and no way of knowing that escape was necessary or possible.]]

* The prologue to the ''Forbidden Borders'' series by Michael Gear tells how SufficientlyAdvancedAliens [[ScaryDogmaticAliens tried to teach humans "reasonable" non-violent behaviour]] since they considered extermination unethical. They trapped a score of human colonies inside "gravitic bottles", which humans dubbed Forbidden Borders, and [[ColonyDrop dropped an asteroid]] on Earth. First they tried to guide humans via a telepathic supercomputer. They managed to slow technological progress and make them forget Earth, but humans contacting the computer ended up forming a cult and keeping its knowledge to themselves. When the aliens tried to force the cult to share their knowledge, the cult just abandoned the computer. As of the series start the aliens were expecting humans to exterminate themselves in the upcoming war of attrition.

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* The Void in Creator/PeterFHamilton's ''Literature/VoidTrilogy'', arguably.

* Natives of the planet Lookout in Jack [=McDevitt=]'s "Omega" live on an isthmus (narrow strip between continents -- like Panama), with basically-impassable terrain on both ends. They pretty much believe they're on an island amidst an infinity of ocean.

* Jericho, from ''Literature/TheBible'', is now synonymous with its absurdly strong fortifications. Tends to happen when it takes ''God Himself'' to bring them down.
** There is also reference to the sky being a firmament, a literal wall around the entire world. This is slightly different than the usual application of this trope, as there is pretty much nothing outside of the area enclosed by the firmament, which exists to hold back the waters that are the source of rain. Although the Book of Isaiah does describe Yahweh as having his throne on top of the firmament.

* In Literature/TheQuran itself, there's a story of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhul-Qarnayn Dhul-Qarnayn]] (Arabic for "The Two-Horned"[[note]]possibly alluding to a horned helmet that he wore?[[/note]]), who [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhul-Qarnayn#People_identified_with_Dhul-Qarnayn may or may not be the same as one of several historical figures]] (among whom are Alexander the Great and Cyrus the Great), being asked to protect a people from their enemy, the Ya'juj and the Ma'juj (Arabic names of Gog and Magog, but as peoples instead of individuals). He does so by building an exceedingly tall wall entirely made of iron, with a massive iron gate that's difficult to open.
** There's also a 'wall' (more metaphorical than literal) between this world and the realm of the dead, that absolutely no one can pass. The wall is the reason why there are few (if any) ghost stories in the Islamic world.

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', Hyrule is a valley bordered on all sides by impassable mountains and a thick forest on the Northwest. No one knows or even speculates on what's beyond. Considering that it's landlocked, [[FridgeLogic it makes you wonder]] where Link boarded the ship from the intro to ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening''. [[spoiler:He boarded from the coast of [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames Labrynna or Holodrum]], where he had been teleported]]
** Speaking of which, Koholint Island in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'' is an island in a vast ocean. Its inhabitants have not attempted to build any sailing vessel more advanced than a rivergoing raft, and most express surprise and disbelief at the notion that there ''is'' a world outside their island. [[spoiler:This is because the island and everyone and everything in it exist only in the dream of the Wind Fish.]]

* A nationwide example happens in ''VideoGame/AzureStrikerGunvoltSeries'' where Japan has isolated itself from the rest of the world with the Kamishiro Barrier preventing anyone from entering or leaving the nation without permission. This is to prevent a potential invasion by foreign powers and further monopolize Glaive technology. The Kamishiro Barrier was deactivated in ''2'' via sabotage from within which allowed Eden forces to launch an invasion but after they are thwarted, it was reactivated in ''3''.

* A nationwide example happens in ''VideoGame/AzureStrikerGunvoltSeries'' where Japan has isolated itself from the rest of the world with the Kamishiro Barrier preventing anyone from entering or leaving the nation without permission. This is to prevent a potential invasion by foreign powers and further monopolize Glaive technology. [[spoiler:By the second game, the barrier was sabotaged by Zonda, allowing Eden to launch an invasion.]]

* The ComicBook/IncredibleHulk occasionally visited the Keystone Quadrant in his old comic-book series... basically a solar-system (possibly more than one) which was somehow 'walled off' from the rest of the universe, it could only be entered and exited through various types of teleportation. It was basically a SugarBowl without the sugar - populated by funny talking animals and hilariously incompetent Keystone Kops... and caught up in a long war between a MadScientist tortoise and his cybernetically-enhanced Black Bunny Brigade (not to mention a small army of robotic [[MonsterClown Monster Clowns]]), and the heroic Animal Resistance, led by a fast-talking Raccoon space-captain.

* Podcast/FriendsAtTheTable’s ''Sangfielle'' takes place in the titular EldritchLocation, a country-sized region in the middle of the continent that suddenly went [[WeirdWest weird]] after centuries of colonization. For fear of Sangfielle’s curse expanding, the nations of the world united to build the city of Concentus around it as a physical and magical barrier. Anyone coming in or out of Sangfielle must pass through Concentus first.

If the barrier surrounds a community, it is an isolated SmallSecludedWorld or CityInABottle or possibly a DomedHometown. Contrast with BorderPatrol, TheGreatWall, which bisects the world, dividing it into two separate parts, and TheOutsideWorld, what lies outside the walls. When the wall is so big people start living on it, you have yourself a DysonSphere.

If the barrier surrounds a community, it is an isolated SmallSecludedWorld or CityInABottle or possibly a DomedHometown. Contrast with TheGreatWall, which bisects the world, dividing it into two separate parts, and TheOutsideWorld, what lies outside the walls. When the wall is so big people start living on it, you have yourself a DysonSphere.

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' DLC Apocalypse introduces Colossi, ships capable of causing an EarthShatteringKaboom, a MindControlDevice targetting an entire planet, a DepopulationBomb, or, for a Pacifistic empire, a Global Pacifier which completely isolates the planet from the rest of the universe in an act of CruelMercy.

* A nationwide example happens in ''VideoGame/AzureStrikerGunvoltSeries'' where Japan has isolated itself from the rest of the world with the Kamishiro Barrier preventing anyone from entering or leaving the nation without permission. This is to prevent a potential invasion by foreign powers.

* '' A nationwide example happens in ''VideoGame/AzureStrikerGunvoltSeries'' where Japan has isolated itself from the rest of the world with the Kamishiro Barrier preventing anyone from entering or leaving the nation without permission. This is to prevent a potential foreign invasion.

* The world of ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'' consists of two behemoths standing in an endless sea. If the characters reach the beaches at the bottom of the world and step into the sea, they lose HP rapidly until collapsing and winding up back on shore.

* In VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' the world consists of several behemoth titans in an endless cloud sea. If the group ventures too far into the Cloud Sea until the titans aren't in view anymore the party hits an invisible wall with one of the group remarking that they should turn around.

* In ''VideoGame/YsVITheArkOfNapishtim'', th Canaan Archipelago is cut off from the outside world due to a PerpetualStorm generated by the eponymous WeatherControlMachine.

* A large portion of the plot in Orson Scott Card's ''Literature/{{Pathfinder}}'' revolves around one of these. It's revealed decently early on that there are actually 19 "worlds" with Walls.

* The city of Houryou, in the Kingdom of En, from ''LightNovel/TheTwelveKingdoms'' also has many layers of walls, but in this case, is because of the constant population growth, as more people migrate to En from other kingdoms, the city constantly needs to expand more to accommodate them, and since the walls are needed to protect them from the monsters, they have to constantly be build with the expanding city.

* ''VideoGame/MotocrossMadness'' surrounds its playable region with a high cliff, and [[Developers foresight players who manage to surmount this]] [[BorderPatrol will be blown sky high by hidden landmines]].

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* In ''Anime/BackArrow'', the entire continent of Lingalind is surrounded by a wall so massive, you can't see its top - it just blends into the sky. It's revered as God by the inhabitants and they believe that beyond it there's nothing but void. It's made quite explicit that saying otherwise is heresy and could get you killed. This belief is challenged by the title character, who insitently claims to have come from beyond the wall.

* ''Literature/{{Oathbringer}}'' (third book of ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive''): Shows up as a myth of people living in a land of shadows surrounded by a wall to keep the monsters out, only for one girl to climb the wall and bring back light, and in the process she discovers the wall is to keep the monsters in. [[spoiler:This appears to be a mythologized account of human settlement in Shinovar, which completely lacks stormlight, and their eventual conquest of the world]].

* ''VideoGame/Stellaris'' DLC Apocalypse introduces Colossi, ships capable of causing an EarthShatteringKaboom, a MindControlDevice targetting an entire planet, a DepopulationBomb, or, for a Pacifistic empire, a Global Pacifier which completely isolates the planet from the rest of the universe in an act of CruelMercy.