The most beautifully rendered cityscapes in popular animation

While many animated films often feature excellent storytelling and lush visuals, a few of them go above and beyond to create a truly living environment. Here are a few of my favorite fictional cities realized in animation, featuring a balance of exceptional art and incidental details that make them truly alive.


Metropolis and Legend of Korra's Republic City

First off, let's start with 2-D and 3-D hybrids. What I like about these cities is that they both boast of a volatile political situation their heroes must navigate. They're also set in an analog of the 1920s (replete with jazz tracks; Metropolis even uses Ray Charles' music extensively).

Image Source: comicvine.com

Republic City fully represents the next generation of the world of “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” an early 20th century-styled Asian-themed Dieselpunk City that also lends itself to adventure and conflict from day one (as Korra, the next avatar, finds out the hard way). It features a diverse set of districts, a volatile political situation, organized criminal activity, and non-cooperative government authorities.

Image Source: fact.co.uk

Like its live-action predecessor, Rintaro's anime features a retro-futuristic false utopia that belies a festering mess of social inequality. Metropolis is a layered city where the poor live in colorful underground ghettoes while the rich and their robots live in the city's bustling upper levels at the foothills of its super-skyscrapers.  

Big Hero 6's San Fransokyo and Kung Fu Panda 2's Gongmen City

I usually don't like the sterile look many 3-D animated urban cityscapes have. While their architecture may be impressive, they lack the liveliness brought about by crowds and traffic. Disney and Dreamworks lock horns in overturning this archetype.

Image Source: allposters.com

Gongmen City boasts not just of incredibly and authentically detailed Chinese architecture, but also of bustling streets with wares and people (animals, actually, but you get the point) that you would find in real-life medieval China. Combine that with authentic kung fu styles and Chinese philosophical symbolism, and you've got yourself one happy wuxia fan.

Much like Republic City, San Fransokyo is a hybrid of Western and Asian architectural styles, specifically that of Tokyo and San Francisco. Technological advancements allow the depiction of a lived-in modern city with hundreds of people crowding the realistically lit streets, and traffic and transit going to and fro its 23 architecturally distinct districts.  

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