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"...In a single day and night of misfortune, the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea."

The fabled lost Utopia (or dystopia), often described as sinking under the sea due to man's hubris and descent into decadence. A common setting with many interpretations, and sometimes just generally used as a stock setting for fantasy and speculative fiction stories. Generally, it's an Advanced Ancient Acropolis chock full of Functional Magic and/or Lost Technology. Aliens or Google Earth may also come into play.

A story set in pre-deluge Atlantis will usually be set Just Before the End, similar to how The Cretaceous Is Always Doomed.

A story setting or legendary place doesn't necessarily have to be Atlantis per se to tap into the myth fabric, but it can be any sort of lost civilization that had great achievements and then were mysteriously lost, preferably lost to water. Other examples include Mu (Pacific Ocean), Lemuria (Indian Ocean), Vineta (Baltic Sea) or Thule (Arctic Ocean) ...heck, even "Antediluvia" (literally, "Land Before The Deluge"), in Christian settings. Often the capital city of the Precursors/Advanced Ancient Humans.

Due to the connection with the city being an island that sank, mermaids are often connected to it. Such as the people of the city surviving by learning to breathe water really quick in the Underwater Ruins, even rebuilding them into an Underwater City.

Historically, "Atlantis" draws on ancient myths from various cultures, but the main details are drawn from Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, where it is a sort of thought experiment related to his visions of the ideal society. In this original version it was an all-conquering empire only successfully resisted by his ideal Athens, which was destroyed in the same cataclysm.

The most iconic Sunken City, and one of the original Islands of Mystery. Atlantis also serves as a common source of inspiration for World Sunderings, which often seen continents sink in ruin beneath the seas.

If you're looking for the BBC series, it's here. If you're looking for the 1993 Danish musical, it's here.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Doraemon
    • Doraemon: Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil have the gang uncovering an underwater world called Mu, who's constantly at war with Atlantis which turns out to be located in The Bermuda Triangle. Turns out Atlantis used to be the home of an insane AI gone rogue, having fleets of ancient robotic ships who destroys every vessel passing around it spawning the Bermuda Triangle mythos.
    • The gang goes underwater again in Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King, this time into an underwater world called Aquadia (who's loosely based on Atlantis) populated by merfolks. Where they must help an Aquadian mermaid princess reclaim her throne.
  • Golden Bat, the first Japanese superhero, originally came from Atlantis, and was transported 10,000 years through time to our world.
  • Being a religious film, The Laws of the Sun depicts Atlantis as a prospering civilization that became the precursor to Egyptian, Roman, and Greek civilizations. However, it's implied that it sunk underwater because its people became conceited and neglectful of their spirituality after its ruler, Thoth, died. Moreover, the film teaches that Earth does this every time a society grows corrupted to the point of rejecting religion and indulging in vices, like what happened to previous civilizations like Mu and the first immigrants on Earth.
  • The Vision of Escaflowne had Atlanteans as the creators of the world on which the story takes place.
  • One plot arc in Yu-Gi-Oh! involves saving the world from the power which destroyed Atlantis. As a nod to Plato, the arc involves three Atlantean dragons, named "Critius", "Timaeus", and "Hermos", nods to the characters of Critius, Timaeus, and Hermocrates in Timaeus and Critias.
  • The main character of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is the last descendant of the Atlanteans, who are actually aliens.
  • In Transformers: Armada, the poor lost civilization gets even more destroyed in a battle for a plot device.
  • In Transformers: Super-God Masterforce, Atlantis was the tomb of Gilmer.
  • Transformers: Cybertron: Atlantis is actually an ancient Cybertronian space ship, part of an initiative to colonize worlds beyond Cybertron and connect civilized planets with a network of space bridges. It suffered a computer crash and sank into the Bermuda Triangle, with one of the plot coupons on board. The Autobots track it down in the present day and reactivate it (it's in good condition thanks to the self-repair systems). It's seemingly destroyed in the battle for the Omega Lock, but turns out to be still around, albeit damaged, twenty-odd episodes later, and plays a role in the show from then on. Eventually, the Atlantis and its three sister ships are re-united and combined into the truly massive warship Ark, used as a staging ground in the penultimate battle and as a Wave-Motion Gun by Primus to destroy the Unicron Singularity. Afterwards, the Ark is separated back into its component ships. In the finale, they set off once more to begin the Space Bridge Project anew.
  • Raideen originates with the Mu. It turns out All Myths Are True and Mu wasn't a lost continent after all - it was just wrought to destruction by the evil Demon Emperor Barao. The Princess of Mu is called Lemuria; those who are familiar with historicity may recognize that "Lemuria" is an alternative name for Mu.
  • The Mysterious Cities of Gold features both Atlantis and Mu in the backstory. The second series reveals that Esteban is a descendant of the Atlantians, which briefly causes conflict between him and Tao, whose ancestors came from Mu.
  • Genesis of Aquarion: Atlantis was not the stereotype depicted in the trope. Everyone in the modern day, 12,000 years after the prologue, is fully aware of Atlantis's existence. It's called Atlantia, not Atlantis, too. It was the home of the highly evolved Shadow Angels, who treated humanity like cattle to be harvested and have their life energies fed off of. They were sealed away after humanity won the initial war.
  • One episode of Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire was about Ash Ketchum and the gang coming upon an ancient underwater city called Pokelantis, which was said to have been sunk by the Legendary Pokemon Ho-oh to dispose of its evil king. Unfortunately, the evil King of Pokelantis's ghost decides to possess Ash...
  • Atlantis and Mu appear in Saint Seiya... After a fashion:
    • Side materials reveal that Death Queen Island, is what remains of Mu: once home to the alchemists that created the Cloths worn by Athena's Saints, it was then taken over by evil alchemists that, armed with their imperfect copies of the Cloths, tried to take over the world, resulting in Athena sinking the whole island. Descendants of the good Muvians still live on, as shown by Shion (pope of Athena and former Aries Saint), Mu (current Aries Saint and clothsmith), and Mu's brother Kiki.
    • Atlantis was Poseidon's seat of power. As in the myth, Poseidon's armies of Atlantisians moved to the conquest of the world only to be routed by Athena and her Saints as they attacked her Sanctuary (near modern-day Athene), with Athena then sinking the whole place and sealing Poseidon's soul in a giant jar. What remains of Atlantis is Poseidon's undersea kingdom, seen (and destroyed) during the Poseidon Arc.
  • Getter Robo: Introduced in Getter Robo G. They're long dead by the time the story starts, but they left behind a gigantic serpentine Humongous Mecha called Uzuhara. It's eventually revealed that Uzuhara is Atlantis. Or, more specifically, that Uzuhara contains all of Atlantis' survivors in suspended animation. The Hundred-Demon Empire kill them all before they could do anything, however.

    Comic Books 
  • Undersea home of superstrong, water-breathing mutated humans in both the DC Comics (Aquaman) and Marvel Comics (Sub-Mariner) universes. Lemuria also exists in the Marvel Universe; its people are green-skinned as opposed to the Atlanteans, who are blue.
  • In the Blake and Mortimer book The Atlantis Mystery, a passage to Atlantis exists in a network of caves in the Azores archipelago. The Azores are an often cited place for Atlantis' location, usually coupled with the theory that the archipelago itself is an Atlantean mountain range that remained above water after the continent sank. Naturally, the whole place is destroyed by the end of the book, with Blake and Mortimer deciding to keep mum about the whole thing.
  • It exists in the Disney Comics Universe. Oooh, it exists. In fact, there are dozens of versions of it.
  • Asterix: In Asterix and Obelix All at Sea Getafix, Asterix and Obelix set sail to Atlantis, where the population has figured out the secret of eternal youth. Needless to say after they leave they decide to keep its location a secret. Uderzo also went a little overboard with the realism in this story, showing flying cows and horses on Atlantis, in a tribute to Fantasia.
  • De Kiekeboes: In De Bermuda Driehoek (The Bermuda Triangle) the cast sets out to explore the mystery behind The Bermuda Triangle and finds out it's actually an underground city, ruled by a villain named Attalantis.
  • One panel in The Sandman (1989) informs us that the original Atlantis, which existed sometime between the last ice age and the Mesozoic, was far greater than we can imagine, to the point where what we think we know about it were mere "echo-Atlantises". Of course, the same panel talks about the great human civilizations that rose and fell before the fossil record had finished with dinosaurs, and shows a T. rex on a leash.
  • In Robin Wood's Gilgamesh the Immortal, Atlantis was destroyed millennia ago, however, some of its people have survived and now exist in a parallel dimension where they watch over and protect humanity from an Always Chaotic Evil race of fish-men.
    • In Or-Grund, also by Robin Wood, Atlantis is a city in the middle of the sea that has advanced technology in a world of Sword and Sorcery, but is in complete decline and besieged by armies of evil humanoid races.
  • According to Hellboy's cosmology, Lemuria was destroyed in the first war against the Ogdru Jahad.
  • Mampato once visited Atlantis, curiously its civilization was clearly Greek, but its inhabitants were black Africans.
  • At the climax of Silverblade, the movie set on Catalina Island is revealed to be actually Atlantis, returned to existence by the Executioner and falcon's magic. Adruu learns the history of Atlantis and the true nature of the spirits: Atlantis' Queen Veega tried to perfect herself and her society by discarding all negative aspects of her soul. This doomed Atlantis, however, and resulted in the falcon spirit and Executioner warring with one another, not realizing they were yin and yang, two halves to the same soul.

    Fan Works 
  • Avengers of the Multi-verse: In Jake, Kim, and Ron's world, Atlantis was the first civilization to use magic, their signature being Creating Life. The Leviathan was made to defend Atlantis, but turned against its creators and destroyed Atlantis, forcing it to be sealed away.
  • The Tomb Raider (2013) fanfic The Camera Loves You, based on the plot of the original Tomb Raider I game, has Lara hired by businesswoman Jaqueline Natla to help find Atlantis. Natla, the story's Big Bad, is actually one of the original rulers of Atlantis, who is trying to raise the city once more and bring about a new age. (Of course, anyone familiar with the first game, Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Tomb Raider: Underworld would probably see this one coming a mile away, since "Natla" is the name of a major villain in them.)
  • Child of the Storm has Namor mentioned several times before he finally pulls a Big Damn Heroes in chapters 71 and 75. Word of God has hinted that the legacy of Atlantis prior to its sinking (c. 20,000 years before present), when it was the most powerful magical society in Earth's history, will play a key part in the sequels.
    • So far, it's been suggested that a) Asgard boot-strapped it in a well-meant attempt to help out humanity when Earth was a Death World, b) it ended up in a Forever War with Lemuria, ruled by the Deviants (powerful and unpleasant human sub-species), c) it used The Dark Arts of the Darkhold to win, and the long-term side-effects ended up destroying it.
    • Separately, Doctor Strange has mentioned that he studied there several times, suggesting that there was a lot to learn from it.
  • Day of the Falcon by nomuse has an interesting discussion on Atlantis in Chapter 20 — especially as the fic is a cross between Tomb Raider and Stargate SG-1; Croft employee Alister Fletcher is every bit as knowledgeable about Advanced Ancient Humans as SGC consultant Dr. Daniel Jackson is about Ancient Astronauts, and glibly note that that the original myths(confirmed by their own experience) stated very clearly that most "Ancients" were Bad News.
    Alister: One thing that always amuses me is how all the modern version of the Atlantis myth get that one thing wrong. In Plato, they aren't the good guys. They're the Evil Empire.
    Daniel: Sure, you've got your odd Reptillians and your Shaver Mysteries, but yeah, most of the modern versions of these myths the space aliens are coming to bring humanity into a new utopia of peace and harmony and chemical-free living.
  • "Al Hanthis" from the Deva Series is said to be a civilisation whose out-of-control artificial magecraft threatened Earth before the founders of the Circles destroyed it, with marked similarities to the Lyrical Nanoha-canonical Al-Hazard. Eventually, Al Hanthis resurfaces, with its people still having designs on Earth.
  • Even The Wizards Must Pay Their Due by Gamma Cavy utilizes this in a very sneaky fashion. Amestris, Xing, and all the other countries in Fullmetal Alchemist canon are on the hidden continent of Alfone, which cut itself off from the rest of the world when the inhabitants of the time got sick of the corruption in the rest of the world. Cavy thus uses the existent legend of Atlantis to neatly fill the plothole in any fanwork involving Amestris etc. existing in our world.
  • In the fanfic Erika Gefallen: Atlantean Unicorn, Atlantis is a magitek starspanning empire a thousand years after they return to earth and conquer it.
  • Island of Fire has a hundred of wizarding children stranded in another dimension creating Atlantis when they land on a barren rock in the middle of the Atlantic ocean and proceed to make it their new home, filling it with temple-like housing and coexisting with sentient dragons as equals.
  • Kwami Magi Homura Magica, Atlantis was a human civilization openly influenced by the Incuators that dominated ancient humanity before the creation of the Miraculouses and the Order of the Guardians, who waged war against it. Like in Ladybug, the war ended in Plagg destroying Atlantis and established a long history of antagonism between the Guardians and Magical Girls and Incubators.
  • The Palaververse: Antlertis was the name of both an island on the other side of the world from the main continents and the powerful and magically advanced civilization of deer based on it, whose Mage-Lords used to rule the world with great power and cruelty in ancient times. It was destroyed when the Mage-Lords tried to summon... something... from deep space that utterly destroyed their homeland, sinking it and causing perpetual magical storms over its former site, although numerous creatures and artifacts of Antlertean origin are still around.
  • In the There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton universe, King Namor sank Atlantis to hide it from Demeter's wrath over losing Persephone. Centuries later, Kassandra would take it over with her united Amazon tribes, exiling all the men and ruling it ever since.

    Films — Animation 
  • Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire. The city is powered by a crystal called the Heart of Atlantis, which is what sunk it in the first place. Princess Kida was a child at the time of the sinking but is still young and spry hundreds of years later in 1914.
  • Atlantis is where most of In Search of the Titanic takes place. This animation is a sequel to The Legend of the Titanic which is loosely based on the Titanic disaster.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In 10,000 BC, the slaves say that the God of the Pyramid came from over the sea when his homeland sank beneath the waves, although others say he's from space. However, there is a shot that contains strangely detailed maps of a continent between South America and Africa, so the land mass did in fact exist at a point.
  • In Alien from L.A., Wanda falls down a hole in the Middle East and discovers the lost civilization of Atlantis — now a tribe of cave-dwelling Australians who use Steampunk technology and live under the rule of an oppressive 1984-esque government. Really.
  • In Aquaman (2018), Atlantis was once a united kingdom hundreds of years ago. But then the place sank, forcing the survivors to adapt to the changing environment. Seven kingdoms rose:
    • Atlantis itself, which became an underwater city with very advanced water-fuelled technologies.
    • Xebel, who closely resemble the original Atlanteans and seem to be their close ally.
    • The Fishermen, who have evolved into merfolk.
    • The Brine, dwelling in a volcanic region and have evolved into a crustacean species.
    • The Trench, now devolved into an Always Chaotic Evil species that both Atlantis and Xebel fight against.
    • The Deserters, now extinct, and had occupied to what became the Sahara when their kingdom dried up.
    • The Missing, with no information as to what happened to them.
  • Atragon features Mulian enemies and their Kaiju Manda.
  • In Cocoon, Atlantis was the site of the Antareans' first base here on Earth.
    Walter: Everyone else said, "use the North Pole", and I said, "no, too cold". Sinking never occurred to me.
  • Erik the Viking: "Hy Brasil" is clearly Atlantis at heart, down to the Greek stylings of the culture. The name, however, comes from another mythical island.
  • Escape From Atlantis is a 1997 film in which an American family winds up in Atlantis after being teleported to another dimension by the Bermuda Triangle.
  • Atlantis, or something like it, features as part of the back-story of The Final Sacrifice.
  • The 1990s Gamera movies have Gamera and the Gyaos originally being Atlantean creations, with the clash between them resulting in Atlantis's destruction.
  • Hercules and the Captive Women has the title character (Hercules, that is, not the Captive Women) stumbling upon the Island of Atlantis and attracting the attention of its vampish queen. Hercules manages to resist her charms and destroy the Island before the Atlanteans can enact their plan to Take Over the World.
  • Added to Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), although it's nothing more than ruins at the bottom of a volcano shaft.
  • The backstory of Star Trek features Atlantis, an artificial landmass in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean created by the Federation. It does not sink. The only time the viewer gets to see it is in Star Trek: First Contact, when the whole shebang has been assimilated (along with the rest of the Earth) by the Borg.
  • Quest of the Delta Knights: The MacGuffin is a secret treasure cache that belonged to Archimedes, who is said to have studied the science of Atlantis, the most advanced civilization mankind has ever known.
  • Doug McClure escapes from the Warlords Of Atlantis in his last monster movie from Amicus Productions.

    Literature 
  • J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium:
    • The Fall of Númenor: The island of Númenor, located west of Middle-earth, was home to the greatest civilization of Men. The Númenoreans established settlements throughout Middle-earth, first as protectors and benefactors of less powerful peoples, then as conquerors, pirates and slave-takers after they began falling to evil. The last king of Númenor was even able to capture the Dark Lord Sauron and take him home as a prisoner. Of course, it wasn't long before Sauron turned Ar-Pharazôn into his puppet and led most of Númenoreans into worshipping Morgoth and practicing human sacrifice, with him as High Priest. Sauron even got the king to launch an invasion of the Undying Lands, at which point Eru (God) intervened and not only sank Númenor, but changed the Earth from flat to a globe. In case anyone missed the point, the epilogue has the survivors call their lost home Atalantë, "the Downfallen". Strangely, though Númenor was definitely meant to invoke Atlantis, Tolkien's notes state that the Atalantë name was purely coincidental. Prof. Tolkien wondered what "the Downfallen" would be in a certain in-universe language and got "Atalantë" (his is supported by the fact that much earlier writings contain the verb root talat- for fall.) Incidentally, one of the surviving Númenorean settlements eventually expanded to become the Kingdom of Gondor, which Tolkien admitted took quite a few cues from Ancient Egypt.
    • The Silmarillion: The subcontinent of Beleriand, which sank to the ocean at the end of the First Age, shortly before Númenor rose. This one's not because of hubris or anything; the War of Wrath among the Valar and Morgoth was so destructive it caused the entire land to sink.
  • Illuminatus! has Atlantis as the birthplace of The Illuminati, at least according to one of the anti-Illuminati fronts in the novel.
  • "The age when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities" is part of the Back Story of the Conan the Barbarian stories. Kull, another Robert E. Howard character, was an Atlantean warlord. In the official timeline, the first civilizations started in Europe around 40,000 B.C., when the continent was known as Thuria, and the greatest nation in Thuria was Valusia. The Thurian age ended after about ten thousand years, and Conan's adventures took place many centuries after Thuria's doom, during the Hyborean age, which also saw the collapse of all civilization.
  • Manly Wade Wellman's Hok Goes to Atlantis has Hok the Mighty, a Cro-Magnon hero, find an advanced civilization called Tlanis in a great, fertile valley that would eventually become the Mediterranean Sea. The story ends with the creation of the Mediterranean Sea.
  • In Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, the Angel Islington used to be the guardian angel of Atlantis until it sank. Islington serves the main characters Atlantean wine saved from its destruction. It's revealed later that Islington is the one who sank it. The only thing he says on the matter is "They deserved it!" Since he was locked away for it, it's clear God doesn't agree.
  • The fall of Atlantis figures prominently in Sherrilyn Kenyon's The Dark Hunters series, as the Atlantean goddess Appollymi The Destroyer nearly wipes out the Greek pantheon while Atlantis is destroyed.
  • Greg Donegan (pen name of Bob Mayer) wrote a series of books featuring Atlantis' ancient enemy returning.
  • Andre Norton's SF novel Operation Time Search. In the distant past, both Atlantis and the island of Mu were sunk beneath the surface due to the Atlanteans' misdeeds. At the end of the book, the intervention of a time-traveler from the future (our present) prevents the sinkings from occurring and both islands appear in the modern world.
  • Stephen R. Lawhead's The Pendragon Cycle combines Atlantis with the Roman withdrawal from Britain, and Arthurian Legend. The first book, Taliesin, focuses on the relationship between the Atlantean princess Charis and the British bard Taliesin, who become the parents of Merlin. Charis's half-sister and rival, Morgian is the series equivalent of Morgan Le Fay. Atlanteans settle on Yns Witrin/Glastonbury Tor and the Kingdom of Lyonesse. An atlantean sword wielded by Merlin becomes Excalibur. Interestingly the fall of Atlantis already happened in the backstory, with Avallach's kingdom being The Remnant of a greater continent before it too goes beneath the waves.
  • Marion Zimmer Bradley's works:
    • The Mists of Avalon uses Atlantis as the source of the old pre-Christian British religion, or at least the lore of the priestesses and bards.
    • Web of Darkness and Web of Light are set in Atlantis itself.
    • Ancestors of Avalon by Diana L Paxson bridges the gap between the novels set on Atlantis and the Avalon series, making a connection previously only hinted at.
  • Discworld:
    • Parodied somewhat in Terry Pratchett's Jingo: Klatch and Ankh-Morpork go to war over an island that rises from the sea. It had sunk a thousand years ago or thereabouts, though. While he did make some references to Atlantis and the Cthulhu mythos, it was also based partly on a real event.
    • A number of sunken civilizations have been mentioned in passing over the series, most notably the former inhabitants of Holy Wood and the original homelands of some very old golem characters. At least one sank embarrassingly slowly; the inhabitants spent years wading. As the Discworld Roleplaying Game puts it, if the inhabitants of any of these civilisations built crystal domes over their cities or evolved into water breathers, they've kept quiet about it.
  • C. S. Lewis:
    • In The Magician's Nephew, the eponymous magician (Uncle Andrew) stores his most valuable magical items, a pair of rings with the ability to transfer the wearer between planes of existence, in a box he believes to have been made in Atlantis.
    • Merlin confirms in That Hideous Strength that Atlantis once existed in the world of The Space Trilogy. Its people had contact with spirits that were neither angels or demons, allowing them to practice sorcery in accordance with nature. Eventually, they went the way of Babel, Numenor, and Sulva and were struck down by the eldila for attempting to destroy Nature, leaving the last remnants of their natural magic to slowly die out until the last remnant of it was Merlin.
  • In the first Lensman book Triplanetary, Atlantis has jet aircraft and nuclear weapons which, along with the machinations of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, lead to its demise. (In fact, it's implied that the wholesale destruction of the small continent was accidental. The plan was for the humans to simply nuke each other. However, the first missile fired by one of the nations was knocked off-course by a Heroic Sacrifice of an Atlantean operative. Unfortunately, the missile ends up hitting a fault line, which results in the whole continent being swallowed by the sea. Oops.)
  • Psyche is a Mythpunk novel that imagines the titual princess growing up in Atlantis.
  • The Takers, a modern Two Fisted Tale by Jerry Ahern. The Gladstone Log is the MacGuffin which sends the protagonists off on their adventure. It's the log of a privately-funded 19th-century expedition to seek Atlantis, set up by British Prime Minister William Gladstone. The villain (who came across several translated pages in WW2) has spent decades searching for it, in the belief that the 'Atlantis' described is an alien base whose technology will give him vast power.
  • Dragonlance has Istar, a powerful empire whose Kingpriest grew to believe he, himself, was on par with the gods. When he communed with them to ask to join them, they destroyed his city by throwing a "fiery mountain" at it, which caused the Cataclysm that altered the surface of the entire world.
  • Subverted in The Diamond Age, where most of the characters call themselves Atlanteans... but in that case, it just means "people from the trans-Atlantic tribe."
  • The Atlantis in Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis is the world before the Vietnam War.
  • H. P. Lovecraft:
    • In the short story "The Temple", the last two survivors of a German U-Boat crew find a sunken city they believe to be Atlantis. The story ends with the Captain (now the only one left) donning a suit and entering the titular ruins, not expecting to return.
    • R'lyeh from "The Call of Cthulhu" would be the insane, abusive cousin to Atlantis; built with Alien Geometries by terrible monsters from beyond the stars, who ruled the world long before the tiny scurrying creatures that would become men some day even existed. It sank long ago, entombing its master Cthulhu under the ocean. This keeps him in a state of sleeping undeath until the stars are right for him to rise again, destroying our pitiful existence and ending the age of man. Not out of malice; he probably wouldn't notice us, much less realize that his rising had wiped mankind from the Earth.
  • In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Captain Nemo shows Professor Aronnax the underwater ruins of Atlantis.
  • In Aleksandr Zarevin's Lonely Gods Of The Universe, Atlantis is an island originally populated by primitive humans. Then a dozen Human Aliens from a faraway world arrive and use their advanced (20th century level) technology to pass themselves off as gods. Their males spread their seed among the local women, creating various hair colors (all humans used to have black hair). The "gods" threw regular orgies to keep themselves busy and helped the natives build up a navy to raid settlements along the Mediterranean. Then a comet came and caused a giant tidal wave. About half of the "gods" survived and are still alive (they're immortal). Then time travel gets involved, and things get really confusing.
  • The Isaac Asimov short story "Shah Guido G" features a flying city named Atlantis that rules the world with an iron fist and female soldiers called Waves as part of the setup for a lame pun. Sinking (well, falling) due to a descent into decadence is done unusually literally — over the two centuries since Atlantis was lifted, the anti-grav motors had been gradually more strained from increasing construction of mansions and the like, with requests for newer, stronger motors denied in favour of spending resources on games and fun for the Higher One caste. Eventually it was strained to the point that a single new building could put it at risk of overloading — at which point a rogue Higher One, finding his society corrupt and unwilling to change, manipulated the leader of the world to call in an entire division of military troops... and their several thousand tonnes worth of ships. The anti-grav motors were overloaded, Atlantis went dark and did what a rock in the air usually does...
  • Atlantis shows up in Everworld, surviving on the bottom of the ocean, protected by a dome. Poseidon and Neptune continually fight over it, but it manages to maintain independence and democracy in a Crapsack World, largely thanks to its mayor (who is from our world). This does create a slight Series Continuity Error, though, since the first book mentions the Vikings raiding the shores of Atlantis (perhaps implying that Atlantis didn't sink, it was transported to Everworld).
  • In Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars, the supposedly lost continents of Atlantis, Mu, Lemuria and so on actually exist in different planes of existence. Clarence Yojimbo explains that stories about these places sinking into the ocean arose out of the rare incidents when a person from one plane of existence would be able to ever perceive another, which would only occur "maybe a few times in his life."
  • In the Oera Linda Book Atlantis is called Atland. It is implied Noah's flood sank it.
  • The Submerged World in Chronicles of the Emerged World is an underwater nation inhabitated by sea-humans and merfolk alike. Eventually after the second book they're persuaded to join the war against The Tyrant.
  • In David Gemmell's Stones of Power novels, the Stones had their origin in Atlantis, and several Atlanteans appear as characters (even though the earliest of the novels is set centuries after Atlantis' fall — one of the powers the Stones enable is Time Travel).
  • La from the Tarzan novels is the queen and high priestess of the lost city of Opar, which is a surviving colony of Atlantis in Africa. Also, the Disney version of her for some reason portrayed La with dark skin and white hair.note 
  • In Dinotopia, the lost city of Poseidos is implied to be Atlantis. Like the Disney film, it is an Advanced Ancient Acropolis which made liberal use of Power Crystals.
  • The Isles of Syren in Septimus Heap are described to be the leftover of a sunken land.
  • Henry Kuttner wrote a number of stories about Elak of Atlantis.
  • Henry Kuttner also wrote short stories about the Hogbens — a family of mutant hillbillies with supernatural powers living in backcountry USA. The oldest family member — the grandfather — was born in Atlantis, mutated from exposure to nuclear reactors and left Atlantis shortly before it was destroyed when said reactors exploded.
  • The Mystery of Atlantis, from the Time Machine gamebook series, is about finding out, well, the eponymous mystery. The ending reveals that the tale of Atlantis's destruction emerged from memories about a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Crete.
  • In Young Wizards, a whale wizard recruits the human protagonists to assist in an underwater ritual that keeps a malevolent supernatural presence contained. To impress upon them the importance of this ritual, she explains to them that the one time in history that the ritual went awry, it caused the fall of Atlantis.
  • In The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, Atlantis was the original home of the Elder Race. Its downfall was brought about by a battle between its twin rulers, magic users of tremendous power.
  • In The Guardians of Childhood, the wizard Ombric is the last survivor of Atlantis. This has not been relevant to the plot so far.
  • The Atlantis in Grailblazers is not only underwater, it keeps magically moving around, thus making it unlocatable by mainland governments. The Atlanteans take advantage of this to go into financial services, as the ultimate in offshore tax havens.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire gives us Valyria, the ancient capital of a great empire once known as the Valyrian Freehold. Home to the most advanced civilization of its time, Valyria was destroyed in a single night when a natural disaster sank much of the peninsula and turned the rest into a fiery wasteland.
  • In the Nemesis Saga, it's eventually revealed that Atlantis was an outpost on Earth of the Alantide, a race of Human Aliens allied with the Ferox in their Forever War against the Aeros. The city was destroyed by Nemesis-Prime, but many of its inhabitants survived to scatter around the planet, where they eventually completely intermingled with the human population and gene pool.
  • The main plot point of Lauren Kate Teardrop and Waterfall is the return (resurfacing) of Alantis, to be brought about by the protagonist Eureka — who happens to be a descendant of Selene from Atlantis, born and raised in just right circumstances to fulfil the prophecy. Unfortunately, the return of Atlantis also means The End of the World as We Know It.
  • In the multiverse that is the setting of Ryk E. Spoor's Jason Wood and The Balanced Sword series, Earth used to be connected to Zarathan, the World of Magic, where there was an enlightened island nation called Atlantaea. The fall of Atlantaea as part of the catastrophe that resulted in the two worlds being sealed off from each other is the origin of the Atlantis myth. (Both series contain a few characters who remember Atlantaea, either through Past-Life Memories or because they're just that old.)
  • Robert Sheckley has a story where a genie attempts to trade with the owners of a modern appliance shop because he got a responsible job at the palace due to Nepotism, so spells for cooling a room during the summer or cleaning clothes are beyond him, but time travel isn't. At first, the shop owners are afraid it'll cause a Temporal Paradox, but decide to squeeze the deal for all it's worth once the genie says he's from Atlantis, and it only has a couple of years left until complete destruction.
  • The Magic Goes Away series by Larry Niven is set during a mythic past before magic (which turns out to be a non-renewable resource) was used up and the world became the mundane place it is now. Several of the early stories mention Atlantis, which is said to be located on a tectonic instability that is kept in check by magic; the implication is that its downfall came when the magic ran out and the long-delayed earthquake cut loose. "The Magic Goes Away", the story that gave the entire series its name, reveals that it didn't even last that long: it was invaded by a jealous rival nation that didn't know about the tectonic instability; the invading army slaughtered Atlantis' sorcerers to prevent them being a threat, and was very surprised when shortly after the invasion Atlantis fell into the sea, taking the invaders with it.
  • In the case of Princess Holy Aura there was Lemuria, a land of magic and wizards.
  • Two sunken lands from British legends are mentioned in the children's series The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. The sunken Cornish kingdom of Lyonesse is briefly referenced in a book Hastings shows Jane in Over Sea, Under Stone. The legendary Welsh kingdom of Cantre'r Gwaelod, meanwhile, plays a much larger and incredibly important role in the books since it turns out to be the Lost Land of prophecy—not only do Will and Bran get to go back in time (in Silver on the Tree) so as to traverse it and obtain the crystal sword there, they get to experience its destruction by the Dark firsthand.
  • The book that probably revived modern interest in the idea was Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by American writer and politician Ignatius Donnelly. In it he argued that, contrary to what many thought, Atlantis was real and existed before the global flood made famous by The Bible. He argued this was the source of many myths and there was some truth in them. Atlantis, he said, had an empire extending from its place in the Atlantic Ocean into Africa, Europe and the Americas. He said it was the origin of many existing peoples. Survivors of its fall founded the Egyptian and other civilizations. The evidence which he used for this, of course, is from 1882 when the book was published and therefore outdated. Nonetheless, it inspired many more Atlantis claims, since the idea was taken up by Theosophists and New Age writers, where it's remained a staple. Others added even more lost islands/continents, such as Lemuria and Mu, plus the more fantastic claims about the Atlanteans' Lost Technology etc.
  • Area 51: It's revealed this was the source of all civilizations on Earth, after refugees from there fled its destruction by aliens millennia ago.
  • In the Cityverse, the destruction of Atlantis was brought about by the Anthropomorphic Personification of the city itself, wishing to free himself from his role as a psychically-bound figurehead.
  • In Artemis Fowl, Atlantis is a fairy city, their second major settlement aside from Haven. It's noted that, after its first destruction millennia ago, the rebuilt version was made to last, and citizens take weekly evacuation drills. (It's also very expensive to maintain, and at risk of breaking The Masquerade, so there's growing lobby to dismantle it.) Many residents are Fish People versions of the usual fairy subraces; the city also has the fairies' most secure prison, The Deeps, because of how hard it would be for terrestrial fairies to leave the city.
  • In The Last Day Of Creation by Wolfgang Jeschke, Atlantis is the name given to a base the time travelers establish in The Bermuda Triangle from which they are supposed to be rescued. It eventually sinks in that they are Trapped in the Past and a movement starts to establish an actual ancient civilisation. The protagonists consider this a pipe dream however, as the colony doesn't have the thousands of workers with the practical skills needed (they're mostly NASA technicians and high-ranking military officers) to maintain such a civilisation. Even if it did work, it's five million years to the twentieth century so they wouldn't survive even as myth, ruling out the possibility that they somehow inspired the legend of Atlantis.
  • A Batalha do Apocalipse: Known as the Jewel of the Sea, Atlantis was the greatest city in human history. Home to the Atlanteans, it was recognized as a great utopia by other antediluvian nations, combining advanced technology with magic. Like many other nations, it was destroyed by the The Great Flood sent by the Archangels.
  • In Maddy's Dolphin, Atlantis is described by Indigo as an ancient city full of waterways where humans and dolphins could all talk to each other. It was destroyed by a volcano and the resulting tidal wave, but the ruins are still inhabited by a dolphin known as the Keeper who has been entrusted with the stone scrolls of Atlantis's knowledge.
  • In The Water-Babies, Atlantis is said to be an alternate name for St. Brendan's Isle, a magical place that has sunk beneath the waves and is now home to the water-babies.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Arrowverse: Atlantis is mentioned to exist on Earth-2 and is considered to be a popular vacation spot. A map of Earth-2 briefly shows a small landmass in the middle of the Atlantic. In fact, this is where this world's Barry and Iris move in order to escape from Zoom. Jay Garrick mentions knowing someone on Atlantis, and Barry's phone has a speed-dial number for someone named Arthur. It's now likely gone along with the rest of Earth-2, having been wiped out by an antimatter wave.
  • Atlantis: A troubled twenty-something searching for his Disappeared Dad somehow gets swept into a mythical Atlantis in episode one. The rest of the series is set there.
  • The team in Danger 5 travel to Atlantis to deliver uranium to power a Humongous Mecha for the fight against Hitler. Unfortunately, it's all part of Hitler's plot to take over the world.
  • In Doctor Who continuity, ancient Atlantis is seen to be under attack by Kronos in "The Time Monster", while Azal implies that he destroyed it in "The Daemons". The second Doctor visits the last remanants of that civilization living underground in the '60s in "The Underwater Menace". There is a persistent fan myth that there are three different explanations for how Atlantis was destroyed, but only "The Daemons" and "The Time Monster" really conflict with each other. The Expanded Universe explains this as destroying bits of Atlantis, (the city, the under city and the island) one after the other.
  • Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: In the episode "Atlantis", Hercules is shipwrecked and washes up on Atlantis, which has highly advanced technology but a very arrogant people. The island eventually sinks because its people, using slave labor, overmined it for crystals, causing the island's foundations to become unstable and sea water to seep in.
  • Lissard, a green-skinned, scaled, fish eating humanoid and a henchman of Lord Fear in Knightmare, is from Atlantis.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
    • Beleriand's destruction by the Valar is shown in the Downer Beginning.
    • The show has the first live action adaptation of Numenor, and is portrayed as being a maritime power and an advanced civilization inhabited by Men. Armenelos, its capital-city, is adorned with canals and golden domes. But as spectacular Numenor can be, its ending is a Foregone Conclusion, and will follow same path as the books, falling to its own hubris and being sank in the depths of the sea by the Eru Iluvatar.
  • MacGyver (1985): As one might expect, Atlantis features in "Lost Treasure of Atlantis".
  • An example of the aquatic variant, Man from Atlantis stars Patrick Duffy as an Atlantean who fights crime using his swimming and water-breathing abilities. No kidding.
  • The Power Rangers visit the sunken island of Atlantis in season 15, Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, on their quest for the five jewels of the Corona Aurora, the crown of the gods. To protect the valuable historical site, the Rangers' mentor decides to keep the city's location secret. The actual location of the city, whether it's in the Mediterranean Sea or the Atlantic Ocean, isn't revealed to the viewer, either.
  • Resident Alien: Harry offhandedly mentions that Atlantis was real. Apparently, its destruction came about due to being overpopulated.
  • Sabrina the Teenage Witch:
    • Atlantis is apparently a popular vacation spot for witches. One of Sabrina's dates takes her there offscreen. She remarks that the fish was fine, but the chips were a bit too soggy.
    • One of the novelizations, Age of Aquariums, has Sabrina discover the city inside a billionaire's aquarium. The reason why the city was sunk in the first place was because the residents — called the Keftiu — complained too much.
  • SeaQuest DSV discover evidence of Atlantis. More plausibly, an early episode has them excavating a ruined city off the North African coast that had been submerged after an earthquake.
  • Stargate Atlantis, notable here in that it was not destroyed in prehistory. It just left the galaxy. The city is actually a cityship (as in starship). The city is capable of landing/floating in an ocean, as well as submerging unharmed, thus playing off the "sunken city" myth. Somewhat played straight, in that the city was deliberately sunk and abandoned by the Ancients 10,000 years ago, after coming under overwhelming attack by the Wraith (in another galaxy). The surviving Ancients (who fled back to Earth through the Stargate) passed the tale of Atlantis on to the ancient Greeks. So in the Stargate-verse, the myth of Atlantis is actually true, they just left out the part that aliens were involved and it happened in another galaxy.

    Music 
  • Lament for Atlantis by Mike Oldfield.
  • "Atlantis" (instrumental) by The Shadows.
  • Atlantis suite by Earth and Fire, from the album Atlantis.
  • Sentinel suite by Pallas from the album The Sentinel.
    • Sequelized 27 years later by Pallas's album XXV.
  • Atlantis by Donovan.
  • Voyage to Atlantis by the Isley Brothers.
  • Crowning of Atlantis by Therion.
  • Atrocity's entire Atlantis Concept Album.
  • The band Visions of Atlantis.
  • Stratovarius titled one of their instrumental tracks Atlantis
  • Dark Fate of Atlantis by Luca Turilli (of Rhapsody of Fire fame)
  • "Atlantis" by Deas Vail.
  • "Lost Continent" by Thrice.
  • The album Queen of the Wave by Pepe Deluxé is a Rock Opera with the decline and fall of Atlantis as its backdrop.
  • In the albums by Power Metal band Iron Savior, the eponymous ship was built by Atlanteans to defend against the land dwellers.
  • Parliament's Motor Booty Affair is a concept album about trying to raise Atlantis through The Power Of Funk.
  • Defend Atlantis by Flobots
  • In the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest song “Cake To Bake” from Latvia, the subject the song refers to claims to have “found Atlantis, by the Way”, but cannot bake the titular cake.

    Myths & Religion 
This trope is archetypal. You'll find submerged cities everywhere you can throw a stone, especially these days.
  • Obviously, the legend of the lost city of Atlantis from Classical Mythology. Except that, strictly speaking, it isn't; the story comes from the writings of Plato, which were philosophical parables, and there's no trace of Atlantis in surviving Greek folk-myths as such, though there were catastrophic flood stories and suchlike. Plato's story goes that the citizens of Atlantis somehow angered the gods, probably by trying to conquer everyone else. As punishment for whatever had annoyed them, the gods sank the island to the bottom of the ocean, thus implying the lesson of "respect the gods, or you and your entire city will drown!" Worse, the sinking seems to have trashed everyone else, too — including the people who were fighting the Atlanteans. However, Plato never seems to have finished the story, so exactly why he imagined the gods intervened in such a cataclysmic way in an ongoing war between Atlantis and everyone else remains unknown.

    That said, there are all sorts of theories about where Plato might have got his ideas from. One is that he based his account on the destruction of the Greek city of Helike (a.k.a., Elike) by an earthquake and tsunami in 373 B.C.; others mention the volcanic eruption of Thera on the island of Santorini around 1600 B.C. which nearly wiped out the Minoan civilization and, based on the archeological evidence, bore a strong resemblance to Plato's descriptions of Atlantis.note  There are also definite echoes of the wars between Greece and Persia in his story.
  • In Celtic Mythology there's Ys, the famous drowned city off the coast of Brittany, the Welsh kingdom of Cantre'r Gwaelod which met a similar fate, the sunken Cornish kingdom of Lyonesse, and Avalon which, in some versions of the legend, also sank into the sea.
  • Russian myth and legend has Kitezh which God saved from conquest by the Mongols by having it sink into Svetloyar Lake.
  • Vineta, a Medieval pagan city near one of the mouths of the river Oder. Its wealth and hospitality were legendary, but its sinking was a punishment for hubris, similar to Atlantis. Not much is known about Vineta, and therefore also not much concerning how big the grain of truth in the Vineta legend is. Possible names include Veneta, Wineta, Jumneta or Jumne (Germanic "J", pronounced as "Y"). As far as Medieval chronicles can be trusted, they tell of a rich merchant city that thrived around X century A.D. Probably, Slavic with significant Viking, Greek and Saxon populations. It had been sacked numerous times by neighbouring Christian kings and faded into obscurity. Possibly, it was abandoned and then the shore sank. Archaeologists have been searching for it for centuries, but back then the river had four mouths and possible locations are spread over some 200 kilometres of Baltic shore.
  • Indian legend has the kingdom of Dwarka, which is supposed to have sunk under the sea off Gujarat.
  • The doctrine of the Theosophical Society believes that the term "Atlantis" is a code name for the previous stage of human evolution (as Lemuria and Hyperboria) which was destroyed by Water and is the fourth of seven stages (ours being the fifth). Thus more than an island, it is a time period encompassing all the civilizations of that time, and the "race" (as in human species) is called Atlantean in a similar way as ours is called "Aryan" (in the Esoteric sense referring to all modern humans and not just the "whites" as in the White supremacists' pseudoscience nor as in speakers of Indo-European languages, which is the academic meaning). For the Theosophist both the myth of Atlantis and the biblical deluge are part of the same metaphor re-telling the destruction of the previous "root race". Similarly Lemuria was destroyed by fire (as every race is destroyed by an element) and its story in the Bible is Sodom and Gomorrah's. Now, according to the Theosophists, the Atlanteans do survive in large numbers and the Mongols and their relatives, including Native Americans, are their descendants.
  • Atlantis was also part of the pseudo-religious and pseudo-scientific Nazi Esotericism, believed to be the homeland of the "Aryan" race and some sort of Utopia that later decayed due to "racial mixing", a belief still held by modern followers of Esoteric Hitlerism and other neo-Nazi religions. Interestingly the Nazi belief is quite the opposite of the Theosophic and other mainstream Esoteric schools, which actually see the Atlantis as a lower level of evolution compared to us and that believe that the Atlanteans, far from being "white", were brown-skinned and/or Mongoloid.
  • American Edgar Cayce, who claimed to be psychic, said Atlantis was a very advanced ancient civilization, destroyed around 8000 B.C., which had incredible technology, along with use of psychic powers. He said their fall came due to misusing both of these, creating human-animal hybrid monsters plus using technology and their powerful psychic powers to wage war. One of their weapons backfired and sank Atlantis.

    Pinballs 
  • Two separate pinball tables have this name, a 1975 Gottlieb and a 1989 Bally.
  • Atlantis is one of the locations you can travel to Pro Pinball: Timeshock!'' It's accessible after visiting all seven continents, and is needed to start the "Global Domination" sidequest.
  • Ripley's Believe It or Not! has the trip to Atlantis available as a Wizard Mode if seven letters in R-I-P-L-E-Y-S have been collected by completing the trips to the other continents.

    Podcast 
  • You explore the ruins of Atlantis in the Twilight Histories episode “The Isle of the Lost.”

     Professional Wrestling 

    Tabletop Games 
  • Atlantis: The Second Age, obviously. Though despite the name, the game actually covers the whole world of Earth's mythic past, and Atlantis is a Vestigial Empire surviving on what remains of its crystal technology.
  • Mage: The Awakening:
    • The gameline posits Atlantis as the origin point for magical knowledge. It wasn't the only place where magic took place (various "barbarian" cultures had their own mages), but it was a major center of magical progress. It also bears the "hubris" connotations as Atlantis fell when a bunch of mages tried to ascend to the heavens then kicked the ladder down after them — which also made magic a lot harder to use for everyone else. The questions of where and when all this happened are unsolvable due to the sheer affront to reality that occurred when the Ladder fell.
    • As the gameline developed it was made clearer that Atlantis was Lemuria, Mu and all the other such realms — or rather, that for the same reasons where and when the Ladder was made and fell are unsolvable, the realm where it happened could be any one of them, at any time and in any place. Atlantis is just the most commonly used name for the place (or concept) amongst modern mages, for similar reasons to this trope being called Atlantis rather than, say, Lemuria.
  • Old World of Darkness: The setting is deliberately vague on Atlantis. The sourcebook Blood-Dimmed Tides gives ideas of what Atlantis could be/might have been, but leaves it up to the storyteller to decide whether to incorporate the city or if it existed at all.
  • Rifts had a highly-advanced human kingdom on the continent, which disappeared with a powerful ritual that also took most of the magic away from the Earth. The Atlanteans themselves scattered, then the continent returned in a World Sundering event that destroyed civilization. It was subsequently taken over by a monster and his armies, who sees it as his own personal Las Vegas (for evil monsters).
  • Warhammer: Ulthuan, home of the High Elves, is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture for Atlantis. It didn't sink but it came close. Well, large parts of it sank, during the cataclysmic magical duels at the culmination of the Sundering when the Dark Elves tried to undo the magics holding Ulthuan above the waves. The westernmost realm of Tiranoc in particular was inundated, and its capital, Tor Anroc, now lies beneath the sea. In the End Times, it finally does sink.
  • Early mentions of the nation of Alphatia, from the Dungeons & Dragons setting of Mystara, hinted that it was actually Atlantis. As Mystara's history was expanded upon in later game products, this connection was downplayed, but the continent of Alphatia eventually sank into the sea, nonetheless.
  • In Unknown Armies, Atlantis is discussed. The Global section of the book reveals that the oldest school of magic came from there. Though this is probably just a rumor. Other books suggestthe rumor was started by the guy who founded the school around the time of World War One so he could dupe gullible acolytes with fake mythological prestige. Which isn't to say Atlantis actually existing is out of the question...
  • Pre-sinking Atlantis gets a full Fantasy Hero sourcebook from Hero Games. Post-sinking Atlantis appears in the Hidden Lands sourcebook for Champions.
  • Magic: The Gathering has Lord of Atlantis, the first merfolk lord printed. This was later retconned; Atlantis is now a merfolk colony called Etlan Shiis, and "Atlantis" is the corrupted pronunciation used by the (human) Orvadians they traded with.
  • The 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons book 'Stormwrack' introduces a new player race in the Aventi, who hail from the sunken city of Aventus.
  • Pathfinder has the sunken continent of Azlant, complete with Sub-Mariner-looking "gillmen." It was originally an aboleth project, but when the interplanetary aboleth council started to get spooked at their creation getting out of their control, they authorised Earthfall to get rid of it, and sentenced the emissary from Golarion to be rendered down to nonsapient individual cells just to drive the point home.
  • Dozens of lost lands from folklore, including Atlantis, feature in Bard Games' three-volume RPG series The Arcanum, The Lexicon, and The Bestiary.
  • Exalted features Luthe, a city of shining oricalchum that floated on the Western seas until it was sunk during the Usurpation by its Solar queen, who would not let the enemy take it. Thing is, the city's still occupied; not all the Dragon-Blooded soldiers, nor the city's inhabitants, got off before it was sunk, and Leviathan, a Lunar caught in a love triangle between the Solar queen and her husband, has spent millennia angsting over his failure and keeping the inhabitants and their descendants there. He's now worshipped as a whale god amongst them.
  • See also part of the Backstory of the true Immortals from WitchCraft.
  • Scion
    • First Edition has Atlantis as being present-day Antarctica, though it was once further up in the Atlantic Ocean where Plato put it. Its people had their own gods, provided in the Demigod book and the Scion Companion for those who want to change canon, but as it stands the Atlanteans took to worshipping the Titans. The Atlantean gods got killed/imprisoned/something and the mortal Atlanteans attempted genocide on the rest of humanity, upon which all the other gods in the world descended on Atlantis, so very angry that they not only sank it and killed every single Atlantean but ended up shifting it to the South Pole, more or less by accident. An object lesson in avoiding making enemies of dozens of pantheons' worth of petty, vengeful deities.
    • In Second Edition, the default setting has Atlantis as a lost and ruined Terra Incognita which may or may not have had gods of its own (and who are dead even if they did exist), but Mysteries of the World offers a living present-day Atlantis based on New Gods-style divine technology, along with their pantheon, the Teros, as both an example of how to create your own pantheon, and as Loose Canon for GMs to include if they want.
  • GURPS Atlantis, by Phil Masters, is a GURPS 3rd Edition sourcebook which includes material on Plato, other stories, and undersea operations, as well as three takes on Atlantis for different types of campaign: the High Fantasy "Orichalcum Age", the Ancient Conspiracy "Heirs of Minos", and the Weird Science "Lords of the Deep". The first of these would later become the timeline "Orichalcum" in GURPS Infinite Worlds.
  • Dark•Matter (1999) includes references to Atlantis as a matter of course, as a Conspiracy Kitchen Sink setting. A Secret History timeline suggests The Greys had made first contact with humanity on the Aegean island of Thera, creating the society that would become known as Atlantis. The Minoan eruption that "sunk" this Atlantis was blamed on the catastrophic failure of an alien power generator.
  • 80s boardgame Escape from Atlantis, where players have to escape from a sinking Atlantis.
  • The land of Faerun on Abeir-Toril, from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, has multiple examples which either are direct shout-outs to the Atlantis story, take aspects from it, or even reference other sunken kingdoms/cities.
    • The city of Northkeep, in the Moonsea, was a center of human culture and learning in the region and a beacon of civilization until orcs, giants, and other evil beings formed the Dark Alliance to destroy it; eventually an invasion force consisting of both a fleet of ships and attackers on dragonback succeeded in doing so, overrunning and sacking the city, and as the final capstone the alliance's mages and clerics gathered on the north shore of the sea and summoned the magic of their deities to sink Northkeep beneath the waves. The ruins remained as broken spires rising from the water, called by locals the Bell in the Deep. Like the sunken Breton city of Ys and the Welsh Cantre'r Gwaelod, the bells of the submerged towers are said to be heard ringing beneath the waves on fog-shrouded nights.
    • When the flying cities of the magical human empire of Netheril fell during the cataclysmic events surrounding Karsus's hubristic attempt to become a god which led to the death of the goddess of magic, Mystryl, two of them landed in the Sea of Fallen Stars. One, Nhalloth, was astonishingly well-preserved and fit all the appearance details of the trope; the other, Sakkors, was so badly damaged and destroyed in the crash as to be nothing but a mountainous pile of rubble.
    • In the ancient days of Calimshan, a war took place between the people of the namesake djinni Calim and those of the marid Ajhuu. The end result was Calim sinking the city of Ahjuutal into the Shining Sea. Eventually, many centuries later, the ruins were located relatively close to the surface by local fishermen, mostly intact.
    • And finally, in the most widespread example, there is the empire of Jhaamdath. Once a great confederation of twelve cities united in worship of Auppenser, god of psionics, and dedicated to trade, learning, and freedom (they were absolutely opposed to slavery and thus often clashed with nearby Calimshan), it eventually fell under the sway of military leaders increasingly devoted to conquest and expansion. The leader of the junta, manipulated secretly by the god Valigan, built a massive navy to carry out their imperialist desires, which required them to cut down and despoil the neighboring Chondalwood. The elves of Nikerymath who dwelled there, slaughtered and deprived of their homes, called down a tremendous tidal wave from the Sea of Fallen Stars in retribution which completely obliterated and drowned Jhaamdath and changed the entire landscape of the region, creating the Vilhon Reach. The only cities to escape were the capital, Dhinnilithnote , and Lirremar, which was far enough from the sea to survive but ended up being built upon and buried beneath the later city of Hlondeth. So that gives us ten sunken cities in the reach. One of them, Jhouram, fits all the trope details to a tee, since the barnacle- and kelp-covered ruins came to be ruled by a sea hag sorcerer and her tribe of kapoacinths, although apparently the influence of all the sunken psionic artifacts warped sea creatures in the area so that all the ruined cities are to some degree haunted by dangerous monsters.
  • Earthdawn implies the Minoan Eruption hypothesis as Thera in the Fourth World (roughly 8,000-3,000 B.C.) is the capital of an empire spanning Europe, Asia, and North Africa built on airships, blood magic, and slaves, lots of slaves.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Number 6: Chronomaly Atlandis and its evolution Number C6: Chronomaly Chaos Atlandis, have names based on the mythical sunken city, although they themselves don't resemble it, being massive golems made of magma and earth.

    Theater 
  • In the Kamishibai paper theater show Golden Bat (1930), the Super Hero protagonist is from Atlantis. He is awoken from his slumber in the modern day by a little girl.
  • A popular Danish musicalnote  was written about Atlantis and the flood. The setting was chosen as it gave the writers complete freedom when it came to choosing a musical style.

    Theme Parks 
  • Journey to Atlantis at SeaWorld takes guests to the famed underwater city, where they are greeted by an evil sea witch before managing to escape.
  • The original version of Poseidon's Fury at Universal's Islands of Adventure had Atlantis as Poseidon's homeworld, and it also served as the setting for the climactic battle between Zeus and Poseidon.

    Video Games 
  • In 7th Dragon III: code VFD, your first official mission as Unit 13 is to travel 12,000 years in the past to the legendary city itself, where the Lucier hail from, and retrieve a specimen of the third True Dragon, Nyala. The city thrives as an undersea civilization, bounded by walls that keep the ocean outside from crushing it. The people of Atlantis intend to destroy Nyala by sinking the entire city, and with it, its entire population, but you defeat Nyala yourself and make their sacrificial plan unnecessary, and bring its people to the present year of 2100.
  • After Armageddon Gaiden has both Atlantis and Mu as ancient advanced civilizations that sunk beneath the sea. Mu created demons in an attempt at immortality that started killing people on mass, while the Atlanteans tried to stop them. The Atlanteans' first plan failed, leading them to cause a global cataclysm that sunk the continent both societies were on in a last ditch effort.
  • In Age of Mythology, Atlantis is still a completely normal Greek civilization island not far away from Portugal — which is possibly a reference to the Azores theory mentioned above. The first campaign covers the fall of Atlantis due to Poseidon attempting to overthrow Zeus, while the first expansion pack added Atlanteans as a distinct civilization that worship the Titans after the loss of their homeland.
  • Assassin's Creed: In the backstory, there's hints there was a city called Atlantis belonging to the Precursors. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey confirms it, and that it actually used to be where the Greek island of Thera is now. A DLC story called Fate of Atlantis explores it, and just why it got sunk - mad experiments went out of control, and the city's ruler felt his people were too far gone to let it continue.
  • Astro Boy: Omega Factor for the GBA features Mu as a whole level, however it's pretty intricate to the game's entire plot. The game's main villain, as well as key technology said villain uses comes from this civilization.
  • One of the levels in Cruis'n Exotica takes place in Atlantis. Yes, the cars are racing underwater.
  • Also, one of the levels in the "Tempest Pack" DLC for Hydro Thunder Hurricane is set in Atlantis as well. And yes, the boats are underwater, too.
  • Child of Light takes place in Lemuria, a mysterious continent inhabited by various fantastical races. There are few humans, though there were at one point four human explorers who settled the continent, and the current rulers are descended from one of them (Cynbel the Wise and Erin the Conqueror). Exactly where Lemuria is supposed to be located is unclear. It seems to be a sort of otherworld, and the main character only awakens there after dying in the real world.
  • In Chrono Cross, Dinopolis is a Reptite civilization merged into the story's universe from an Alternate Universe by Lavos to counteract the influence of Chronopolis. Chronopolis promptly defeated Dinopolis and ruined it. The ruins became Sky Dragon Isle.
  • In Chrono Trigger, the Kingdom of Zeal is perched on a Floating Continent in the story's 12000 B.C. It had previously derived its power from solar energy, but started instead tapping the power of Lavos sleeping inside the earth. Eventually this awoke Lavos, who started to rain Death from Above (or in this case, below) that caused the Kingdom of Zeal to break up and Colony Drop into the ocean. Scattered ruins remain to be found in later ages.
  • In Conduit 2 Atlantis is an ancient alien city at the bottom of the ocean, and acts as the game's main hub, as it is your base of operations, teleporting to levels through the titular Portal Network.
  • Ecco the Dolphin visits Atlantis during his journey. In this iteration, Atlantis was at war with aliens stealing lifeforms from Earth to snack on, and the island was sunk by a beam from said aliens. Luckily the Atlanteans were masters of time travel and escaped into the past.
  • Serious Sam: Next Encounter has this as the third and final location (the first and second being respectively ancient Rome and feudal China). Here legendary Atlantis is represented as an Advanced Ancient Acropolis with Magitek aesthetics everywhere. Interestingly it's depicted as being under a frozen polar ice cap instead of being sunk at the bottom of the ocean, though the inhabitants are obligatory Fish People and cyborg marine creatures (squid, crabs, etc). Also, it has the most gimmicky and varied levels in the whole game, as well as being the crash site of a Sirian spaceship. Good thing the player has plenty of weapons... Worth knowing is that the game is officially disregarded as non-canon.
  • The Elder Scrolls
    • The series has a version in the backstory known as Aldmeris. It is said to be the continent the Precursors of the modern Mer (Elven) races, the Aldmer, came from. It is said that Aldmeris came under an unknown threat in the earliest Era of history following the creation of the mortal world and the Aldmer were forced to flee. It is said to be "lost," and whether it still exists (or ever existed at all, as other theories claim that Aldmeris was simply Tamriel before the races of Men arrived) is unknown.
    • The series has another version in Yokuda. Once one of the most advanced society of its time, the entire continent sank for mysterious reasons. Explanations ranging from the natural, such as a tsunami or earthquake, to the more fantastic, such as a group of rogue Ansei using their Dangerous Forbidden Technique Fantastic Nuke. Although, in this case, there are hints that some islands from the old continent that still remain. For instance, Lord Vivec's Sword Meeting with Cyrus the Restless takes place on one of these islands. Redguard, the game Cyrus is from, even features a few people referred to as Yokudans — who the Redguards (descendants of refugees from Yokuda) discriminate against, despite very obvious shared points of culturenote .
  • EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: Deep Heaven is the Atlantis stand-in, complete with classical Greek architecture and temples.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, the Centra civilization fits this trope. Being the parent civilization of most of the current civilizations in the game's story, it was obliterated 100 years before in a single event by a cataclysmic natural disaster called the Lunar Cry. This would normally be Death from Above, but the presence and activation of the Crystal Pillar in Centra at the time caused the Lunar Cry to specifically target Centra dead-on with Kill Sat effects.
  • Final Fantasy X briefly shows a city that was sunk beneath the Moonflow. Wakka claims the citizens built it just to show they could and the city sank because of their pride.
  • Frogger's Journey: The Forgotten Relic: One of the memos Finnius left behind indicates that he went searching for the undersea city of Atlantis. Leona believes the city is just a myth, but Frogger goes searching for it anyway. Sure enough, it turns out to be real, and serves as the location for one of the levels.
  • Genshin Impact: Enkanomiya is a variant which isn't merely underwater, but directly under the seafloor, having been cast underground during a battle between gods.
  • In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, you and your party visit their world's version of Lemuria, which has sunk into ruin because of Alchemy being sealed away.
  • Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, as if it wasn't obvious. The game also references Hermocrates, which would have been the third dialogue in Plato's trilogy if it had been written.
  • The plot of the first Tomb Raider I game revolves around the search for a lost Atlantean superweapon.
  • Lemuria is mentioned in Ever17. It's never revealed whether it ever really existed or not, but it's implied that it didn't. It's mostly used to tie into the plot of possible psychic powers, time travel and divine wrath, some of which are real and some are not. Maybe. Lemuria is also used as a metaphor about questioning reality, a recurring theme in the game.
  • Unreal Tournament 2004 has a Double Domination map, that takes place in Atlantis. The map is called DOM-Atlantis. Still under the sea, but all that water is kept out of the arena by Atlantean magic.
  • The Journeyman Project 3 has Atlantis as one of the three time periods visited during the game. The city is unusually realistic and well-researched in this game (apart from the Alien Technology), with the developers going out of the way to show their work through comments made by Arthur your AI sidekick.
    • In essence, thanks to advanced technology left behind by helpful Precursors, Atlantis was a theocratic city-state built on a Mediterranean island, with dikes opening up usable land. They were isolationist and rather elitist, enslaving any who found the city. Its destruction was due to a battle between two alien races after the Lost Technology.
  • World of Warcraft has the undersea city of Nazjatar - capital of the ancient Night Elf civilization before its sinking, now home to the nagas that the Highborne Night Elves were mutated into.
  • Skies of Arcadia has Soltis. Which was sunk by its creators.
    • And was named Atlantia in the Japanese Version.
  • The settings of the Breaking Out game Bricks Of Atlantis is loosely based on Atlantis.
  • Atlantis is the primary setting for the Expansion Pack Poseidon: Master of Atlantis. It doesn't take itself all too seriously.
  • God of War:
    • Atlantis was going to appear in God of War II, but was Dummied Out.
    • Referenced in God of War III in the battle with Poseidon, who claims that; "Atlantis will be avenged!" hinting that Kratos had a hand in the city's destruction, which is hardly surprising.
    • Kratos travels to Atlantis in Ghost of Sparta. You guessed it: Kratos sinks it by releasing a lava Titan which causes an eruption.
  • In Timelapse, Atlantis is the last world you can visit. It's quite beautiful, contains technology from Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, and it's nearly empty — the Atlanteans left for another planet. Watch out for the one remaining inhabitant, though.
  • In the world of Dystopia, Atlantis is an aquatic city with no definite location in the Atlantic Ocean. One would think that the Space Elevator attached to this free floating city would make it easy to find, but poor weather is common and the city tends to move often. It nearly sank during a terrorist attack.
  • You visit several Atlantis-like places in Aquaria, although in this case, none of them sank; they were underwater already, home to an assortment of aquatic sentients (all of them humanoid, to a greater or lesser degree). Naija is the last surviving member of the most Atlantis-like of these, the Mithalans, whose society fell when their priests, in the search for eternal life, imprisoned, tortured, and warped their own god; besides Naija, all that remains of the Mithalans are feral, aggressive mutants not dissimilar to the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
    • There is one, in fact; it's never given a name (only referred to as "The Sunken City"), but it's familiar to your partner, and may be the same city that was once floating in the sky before it was brought down by the cataclysm that created the Big Bad. Unlike the other ruins you encounter, which have the appearance of being designed to take advantage of being constructed in underwater caves, the buildings in The Sunken City have the look of being terran in origin.
  • "Atlantis" shows up in Banjo-Tooie as Underwater Ruins. It's necessary to enchant the waters of Jolly Roger's Lagoon with Mumbo's Magic so Banjo and Kazooie can swim indefinitely and explore the ruins without needing to worry about an Oxygen Meter.
  • Mu and other lost islands are mentioned in Terranigma. They are only present in the game if the player "revives" them by visiting secret towers in the beginning of the game. They don't contain much, just a free inn and a nice weapon.
  • In Dominions 3, there's an Atlantis. It's a civilization composed of frog-people and fish-people from coral reefs and deep sea trenches, and it's not especially advanced in either magic or technology (though its basalt enchantments are nothing to scoff at). It doesn't sink, but it's destroyed twice, and the survivors of the Second Fall become Inuit-esque death mages.
  • Mega Man 6 had Centaur Man's stage be modeled after Atlantis, because Greece was (allegedly?) near Atlantis.
  • Rapture from BioShock was meant to be a new-age, art-deco, Objectivist Atlantis. Not that it really worked out, other than the art-deco thing.
  • Shin Super Robot Wars had the Mu civilization. In the back story of Shin, a certain race fled their homeworld under the threat of the Ze Balmary Empire. Split into different factions with different leaders, they attempted to flee. One group fell beneath Balmar's shadow, while another fled to the safety of the Dug. Finally, one staked their lives on traveling to an unknown, distant region of space. This faction formed the Mu culture, which were wiped out before the start of the game.
  • Star Ocean uses Mu. Legends say it was an incredibly advanced civilization that was sunk when a meteorite hit it. The exact nature of its destruction may or may not be something else, but it resulted in the survivors being teleported across the galaxy.
  • In Gun Nac, the waters of Area-3, according to the US manual, lie above the sunken city of Atlantajorja.
  • Undertow (Chair Entertainment): The mythical civilization appears as one of the four factions in the game, and is portrayed as an Empire which uses magic and aquatic animals. It's briefly hinted that overuse of that power is what led to them being sealed under the ice for millennia until the icecaps were melted, freeing them and letting them escape into an Earth that was flooded after they were sealed, a state which suits them just fine.
  • In Universe at War, it is later revealed that a giant Masari colony ship is submerged (but not for long) under the Atlantic ocean. The ship's name? Atlatea. Considering it's implied that the aliens had a hand in aiding our species' development...
  • Wizard101 somehow managed to have an Atlantis Fantasy Counterpart Culture, in a World in the Sky setting. The world of Celestia was eons ahead of its time, before it got sunk by a storm titan. It's not really made clear how a Floating Continent can be underwater.
  • Titan Quest latest expansion set, aptly called Atlantis has you going through a long quest to find the diary of Herakles and some other MacGuffin in order to reach the island, defeat the reptilian cult (a race of Snake People dabbling in a Religion of Evil) and their deity, Tiamat.
  • Guild Wars and its sequel have Orr, the third human nation of Tyria. Once a vast metropolis blessed by the Six Gods, when a Charr invasion crushed its army the Vizier enacted a spell he claimed would save the nation. Instead the Cataclysm sank most of the peninsula beneath the ocean and turned everything living into undead. In the sequel it can be explored after Zhaitan raises it and it serves as one of the main sources of Orichalcum.
  • In Xenogears, the Zeboim civilization exists as Underwater Ruins beneath the Aquvy region. It was annihilated 6000 years prior by global nuclear war that wiped out most of the planet's population.
  • The titular land of Ys and other lost civilizations in the series. The former is apparently inspired by the Celtic legend of the city of Ys, although it's a Floating Continent rather than a sunken city. The sixth game does have one of those, though.
  • ''Poptropica's 2nd and 3rd Mission Atlantis episodes take place in the destroyed remains of Atlantis, as your character tries to figure out its backstory.

    Web Comics 
  • In Wapsi Square, the ancient civilization known as Lanthis was the source of the Atlantis stories. Ultimately, their attempt to make a very powerful weapon resulted in a planetary societal collapse end of the world scenario.
  • In Dustpit Follies, it turns out that Atlantis sunk because aliens attacked. The city was of the "technology more advanced than modern day" varient. One of the characters has a harddrive that apparently survived the destuction and thousands of years. He bought it from a flea market for 10 bucks.
  • Shelley, Amy and Desmond visit Atlantis in one of the last chapters of Scary Go Round.
  • Atlantis and its self-caused destruction figure heavily in the back-story of Collar6.
  • In Zukahnaut, when the protagonist finds himself in the body of a Sea King after a mind-swap, he automatically assumes his kingdom is Atlantis. When he discovers that it isn't, he changes its name to Atlantis immediately.
  • Scandinavia and the World (which, for some context, is about the idea of Nations as People):
    • Atlantis singlehandedly ruins Greece's drunken party by crashing it, riding a unicorn and accompanied by a fairy and leprechaun. This causes all the drunk countries (who think they're hallucinating) to go home and sleep it off.
      Greece: Damnit Atlantis! I've told you not to ride through here when I'm having my drunken parties!
    • Doggerland (which is discussed below) is shown as lying underwater bored to death while he plays with fish. A flashback shows he literally drowned as Denmark and England watched.
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: When the Doctor was little, his grandfather was attacked by Atlantean fish peoople on dry land once... because he'd tricked them into leaving Atlantis so that he could take a holiday in there in peace, and they wanted to know how to get back.
  • The punchline of this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic about Jesus's first attempt at transmuting water into wine, producing a fusion reaction.

    Web Original 
  • RWBY: The city of Atlas was a floating island that was lifted off the land that eventually became the city of Mantle. In volume 8, the people of both cities are forced to evacuate to escape Salem and her Grimm army. The island of Atlas collapses onto Mantle due to the Relic of Creation no longer being used to levitate it, and the resulting earthquake is powerful enough to cause water from a nearby mountain lake to flood both cities. It's also worth noting that within the setting, the Kingdom of Atlas was the youngest and most technologically advanced of the four kingdoms of Remnant.
  • The SCP Foundation houses SCP-496 which hints at having interacted frequently with citizens of (possibly) Atlantis.
    • SCP-612 reference "mountain copper", the miracle metal attributed to Atlantis.
  • In Angel of Death, Atlantis was a 10,000 year old civilization, which, according to Valthakar, its former king, was totally unparalleled in its art, ethics, and philosophy by anything that exists today. It was also a victim of lich attacks in the old days when liches served the underworld. It survived everything the Underworld threw at it, then, for no evident reason, sunk, leading Valthakar to the belief that trying to preserve anything with magic is pointless for a lich.
  • Springhole:

    Western Animation 
  • Cosmo of The Fairly OddParents! takes this to absurd lengths when it's revealed that he sunk Atlantis...9 times. This is even lampshaded when a character stops and asks "How?"
  • Parodied in the Futurama episode "The Deep South", in which the Planet Express crew stumbles upon the lost city of Atlanta, GA. It comes complete with a parody of the Atlantis song quoted above, sung by Donovan himself.
  • In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), Atlantis — or, as it's called by the natives, Y'lyntis — is at the center of several of the series' subplots, including the origin of the turtles' second lair.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987):
    • The underwater city of Atlantis shows up in one episode. Oddly, one of its inhabitants is a Fish Person, while the rest are human (a dome keeps out the water).
    • Another version of Atlantis exists in ancient Greece. This one has the followers of Atlantis make April wear the amulet that makes her queen and resurrect Atlantis from the sea.
  • The DuckTales (1987) episode "Aqua Ducks" was largely set in Atlantis.
    • There's also a Carl Barks story set there.
    • In DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, the Genie said that Merlock wished to sink Atlantis because he couldn't get resort reservations.
    • The first episode of the reboot had Scrooge taking the kids to the lost ruins of Atlantis. It was originally a City on the Water, but it sunk due to the support structures being insufficient for all the death traps they loaded the place with. It's not only sunk but flipped upside-down because of this, rendering said traps mostly useless.
  • In Ruby Gloom, Misery's disaster-plagued lineage apparently starts at Atlantis, where Misery the First had a summer home. Inexplicably, she has slides.
  • Parodied in Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats with "In Search of Catlantis".
  • Centurions featured four episodes partially set there.
  • The Godzilla Power Hour featured an episode about Atlantis with a rampaging robot being responsible for the sinking.
  • Jackie Chan Adventures: Atlantis used to be the centre of water demon Bai Tsa's empire. When she's set free in season two, she heads straight for it only to find it in ruins due to the intervening centuries.
  • Atlantis shows up in several SpongeBob SquarePants episodes, but is most prominent in "Atlantis Squarepantis". (A throwaway line in that story reveals that its Atlanteans came from another planet.)
  • Phineas and Ferb decided to find and raise Atlantis one day.
  • In Xiaolin Showdown, Master Fung mentions that Dojo (when he was having one of his "evil" days) sunk Atlantis.
    • The group actually visits Atlantis in a later episode, a deserted ruin with a big "Welcome to Atlantis" sign outside. Dojo wistfully remarks that "you should've seen this place a few thousand years ago."
  • In Mighty Max both Skullmaster and Virgil come from Lemuria. Later, Skullmaster tricked the population of an undersea city to give him their souls for "safe keeping".
  • Visited by the title character of Alfred J. Kwak, and it's inhabited by Dodos, long thought extinct after a massive flood.
  • Atlantis is one of the core locations of The Prince of Atlantis. All Atlanteans have long left Earth behind to find a new home among the stars, but Prince Akata is still around to protect Atlantis and its technology, and with that Earth itself.
  • Count Duckula, episode "The Lost City of Atlantis".
  • In Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends Atlantis fought and drove off the Shadoens some time in ancient history.
  • In the Justice League episode "The Terror Beyond", the reason why Atlantis is an underwater city is revealed. Long ago, an Eldritch Abomination and its forces attacked Earth. The king of Atlantis created a powerful magical trident that could banish the monsters. Unfortunately, he had to drain the magic that kept Atlantis afloat to do it.
  • Parodied in Family Guy: "Hey kids, it's a recreation of the lost city of New Orleans!" *Awed music plays as they pan over submerged skeletal remains of a Girls Gone Wild video, among other things* "...Dad, was there ever a real city of New Orleans?" "No one knsubows, Chris. No one knows."
  • Sabrina: The Animated Series has Sabrina claim that her ancestors built it - and Salem oversaw the construction. Naturally bringing it up is a Berserk Button for him.
  • Even The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show gets in on this, when our heroes get thrown aboard on a cruise trip. There's nothing much to it aside from some ruins, though, and the sole inhabitant is a belligerent centaur.
  • Atlantis was the "jewel of the Empire" according to an alien villain in Men in Black: The Series, it seems that Earth itself was part of an interstellar Empire in antiquity and the city sunk at some point. It's still a popular tourist location for marine aliens.
  • Rick and Morty visit Atlantis in one episode, and they have an awesome time offscreen while the actual plot of the episode happens elsewhere. Nothing beats mermaid puss!
  • Miraculous Ladybug: The episode "Style Queen" reveals that Plagg, the kwami of destruction, was responsible for sinking Atlantis, apparently by accident.
  • This is the setting of The Backyardigans episode "The Great Dolphin Race".
  • The finale movie for DC Super Hero Girls is DC Super Hero Girls: Legends of Atlantis, with the girls traveling to Atlantis when it gets taken over by Mera's sister Siren.
  • Atlantis in Young Justice (2010) is portrayed as a nation of superhuman, aquatic residences like Aquaman and Aqualad. Season 4 reveals that Vandal Savage founded Atlantis as a village of his metahuman descendents, who would give rise to Homo magi, the ancestors of magic using humans. Centuries later as part of his plan for humanity to rule Earth's oceans, Vandal had Klarion sink Atlantis. While the majority died, including its leader and Vandal's grandson Arion, some had survived using their magic to adjust to life in the sea.

    Other 
  • Plato described Atlantis as "beyond the Pillars of Heracles" (read: Gibraltar*) and "as big as Libya and Asia (read: the part of Africa north of the Sahara and Asia Minor, i.e. Turkey) combined", home to a great civilization wiped out by natural disaster. For centuries after the discovery of the New World, certain mapmakers insisted on identifying the Americas with Atlantis.
  • One of the more popular theories holds that the "real" Atlantis that inspired the legends Plato borrowed from was the Minoan Empire, a thriving Bronze Age trade empire which essentially controlled the entire Mediterranean Sea and its shores from their capital on Crete, their wealthy (and respectably advanced technologically for the era) port city Akrotiri on Santorini (Greek name: Thera), and other settlements throughout the Aegean Sea. They were major trading partners of Mesopotamia, Egypt and the various city states which became nations like Greece, Rome, and Carthage. Contemporary accounts and archaeological evidence universally indicate a thriving nation rich in culture, military and naval might, and wealth, set to become Rome before Rome. And then they learned why it's a really, really bad idea to build your economic and military center on a ring-shaped island with an awesome central harbor that from time to time does strange things like boil or emit fumes. The eruption of the Santorini volcano was one of the most violent in recorded history, with documentation of the ash cloud and crop failures in places as far away as China. While they apparently had the sense to evacuate Akrotiri when the island began to fall apart around them (leaving the ruins buried under meters of ash on what survives of the island, an archaeological Ghost City) this was still the beginning of the end for the mighty Minoan empire. The eruption which destroyed their Shining City, the ensuing tidal waves and aftershocks which devastated the rest of their settlements, and the volcanic winter which followed reduced the nation from an ancient world superpower to a Vestigial Empire. What was not swiftly conquered by the rising Mycenaean confederation was simply absorbed into it or fled as refugees to Egypt and the Middle East. The first mighty empire to rule the Mediterranean region was forgotten for millennia as history faded into legend, and legend faded into myths about sunken islands and labyrinths with bull-headed monsters.
  • There was also a pseudoscience that the Madeira and the Azores archipelagos were what remained of the land of Atlantis.note  Since they were beyond Gibraltar, it kind of made sense, especially considering the theory surrounding the Egyptian and Mesoamerican pyramids. Neither archipelago was permanently occupied prior to the arrival of the Portuguese (a few rogue Norse colonies might have lasted a while), but the nearby Canary Islands were inhabitated by a complex civilisation, the Guanches, mostly genocided by the Spanish.
  • There is a luxury hotel just outside Nassau in the Bahamas calling itself Atlantis. Consider how Atlantis' fall was due to certain moral extravagances often associated with having too much money, and the delicious irony therein. Even more so considering it is in a hurricane zone and near to an earthquake zone, so "sinking" is a possibility, if remote.
  • The Yonaguni Monument: A large, regularly-shaped formation off the coast of Japan's southernmost island. Some say that it was naturally formed due to its sandstone breaking due to seismic activity. Others believe that it could be the remains of some lost civilization's city or temple, and estimates state that it could date back to 8000 B.C., around the end of the last ice age. If the latter were true, then history as we know it would change drastically, since that would make the monument older than the Pyramids, and it would mean that there was a real civilization whose fate was similar to that of the legendary Atlantis. Given that some of the "stair"-looking blocks are quite huge for humans, those more inclined to accept "out there" theories suggest that Yonaguni was built by giants, while those favoring it being naturally formed say that's evidence against it being a construct at all.note 
  • In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before modern theories of plate tectonics ironed out their shortcomings, syncline theory looked more viable. It postulates large chunks of land randomly going up or down, thus any dry land may sink and become a sea bottom, and sea floor may rise. "Lost continents" featured prominently in scientific speculation to explain, for example, the presence of similar species and fossils in places separated by thousands of miles of ocean or desert, like lemurs in both Madagascar and India. Naturally, anthropologists and linguists also jumped on board, using "land bridges" to explain human migration and so forth. Eventually people started to take the idea to its "logical" conclusion and suggested that whole, and potentially advanced civilizations might have once existed on these sunken lands; and so, like other myths, the legend of Atlantis maybe contained a kernel of truth. This idea was hugely popular in the early part of the 20th century, not just with crackpot mystics but with the population at large. That aforementioned lemur land bridge — known as "Lemuria" — survives in popular imagination as the site of its own mystical civilization.
    • 19th century writer Augustus Le Plongeon claimed that the Mayan and Egyptian civilisations were remnants of the ocean-spanning kingdom of "Mu", which had its capital in Atlantis. Later, James Churchward would present a version that placed Mu in the Pacific Ocean as a second sunken continent, also identifying it with the Garden of Eden.
    • An updated version of this sort of theory is the idea that the landmass below the ice in Antartica was the original Atlantis.
    • These ideas were also used as explanations of how "lesser" people like the Mayans could have advanced civilizations, with Europeans claiming they were "devolved" descendants of Atlanteans. These days Ancient Astronauts are frequently put in place of the Atlanteans, and critics feel this has the same unfortunate implications about ancient people (usually non-European) being too stupid to independently do this.
  • There is a strong belief among the people of Cornwall and Scilly that there is a sunken land under the sea that serves as their border known as Lyonesse. Apparently, if you stand on the cliffs of southernmost Cornwall, you can still hear the churchbells ring under the waves. Similar stories are also told about the city of Ys off the coast of Brittany, Cantre'r Gwaelod in Wales' Cardigan Bay, and many other locations around the British Isles. Such stories may have foundations in truth: At the end of the last Ice Age when region was being first settled, sea levels were significantly lower- meaning many areas of the English Channel's shallows were consistently above the tide line. The isles of Scilly (for example) was one big island and there are traces of farm hedges underneath the waves.
  • Changing sea levels and plate tectonics have caused low-lying areas of today's continents to spend long periods submerged. Presumably this will happen to such regions again, but only on a geological time scale.
  • For a long time, Russians believed in a place called Zemlya Sannikova, or the Sannikov Land, said to be an island far north in the Arctic Ocean, northeast off New Siberian Islands, possibly a part of larger Arctic continent. Several explorers claimed to have seen it as they sailed through the polar sea in the late 18th-19th century, and Baron Eduard von Toll vanished on his 1902 search for it. There may have indeed been a Sannikov Land at one time, in which case it either was submerged or eroded; in fact, there are banks only meters deep in that area. It was also believed that a volcano could make the island warm, providing a home to migratory birds and allowing a vanished Onkilon tribe to still live there. These legends formed the basis for the story Sannikov Land, adapted into a 1973 film.
  • Whilst it was not a shining mighty city, and whilst it did not disappear instantly, there was once a large tundra, with thriving Mesolithic human habitation, on Doggerland, a large landmass connecting the British isles and Europe. It flooded in around 6500 B.C, though it persists in the form of the Dogger Bank, a huge sandbank in the middle of the North Sea, portions of which can be stood upon at low tide.
  • Zealandia, also known as Tasmantis, was a continental fragment that broke away from Australia 60-85 million years ago, only to subside almost entirely below the water level. Presently 93% of it is submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean, with only its central highlands protruding above the surface as New Zealand and mountains of New Caledonia at its far north.
  • Two other submerged shards of Gondwana — in the Indian ocean — are Mascarene plateau (north and east of Madagascar) and Kerguelen plateau (halfway between Africa and Australia and further south than either). Only a few percent of each protrude from water. Both sunk tens of millions years ago.
  • The ruins of the pirate city of Port Royal lie beneath the waves. It sank because an earthquake hit and caused a tsunami-like wave (in the Caribbean, no less). The wave entered the harbor and as soon as it hit the city it reverberated and headed toward the other side of the bay, hit that, and then was sent back in a continuous cycle. It's not clear if that is exactly the reason the entire peninsula it was on sank, since the foundations of the town are still there under the water, but it certainly didn't help.
  • When the Aral "Sea" dried, remnants of a number of Medieval (9th-14th centuries CE) settlements were found on its bottom. If ancient chronicles are to be believed, there may have been several more cities there, possibly even older.
  • Regarding Google Earth: when oceanic bathymetry data was included in 2009, curious users discovered a suspicious-looking grid in the data off the coast of Africa. It was attributed to computing errors, and in 2012 new data was input to rectify the problem.
  • Rungholt, a large settlement on the coast of Germany, is also known as Atlantis of the North Sea. It sank when a storm tide hit it in January 1362 (called the second Grote Mandrenke* no less.) According to legend it was a rich, prosperous place, but people there evoked the wrath of god when they forced a priest to administer the last rites to a drunken pig. The priest fled to a church and was either warned about the flood in a dream or prayed to god for it to happen in the first place. Either way, the city sank and over the next centuries was shrouded in mystery. Apparently, in good weather you can still hear the peal of church bells under the surface of the ocean and septennially the whole city rises over the waves. It's widely accepted today that Rungholt did exist outside of legends, although the exact location remains unclear.
  • Inverted with Scandinavia by the post-glacial rebound. The Baltic donates Finland a duchy's worth of land each century, as the crust of the Earth rises and pushes terrain up out of the sea. There are several islands in the Finnish archipelago whose end with name -grund ("ground," "shallows"), implying they were shallows or shoals in the Middle Ages. In Norway there are remnants of Medieval moorings some 8-10 metres above sea. The rate of the Earth's crust ascending can be up to one metre per century; this rate is clearly noticeable within a human lifetime.
  • YouTube channel Bright Insight came up with the hypothesis that the site of Atlantis is actually the Richat Structure, an eroded geologic dome in the Sahara Desert. Not without its criticism, the similarities and circumstantial evidence are remarkable.
  • Another theory attributes the demise of Atlantis to the Younger Dryas impact, a hypothesized cometary impact that its proponents claim wiped out many of the world's megafauna at the end of the last Ice Age some 12,900 years ago. In late 2018 scientists found a massive impact crater in Greenland which some speculate was the cause of the turmoil, although it has not been dated.

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