New Crobuzon
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The City-State of New Crobuzon is one of the main settings in the fictional world of Bas-Lag created by China Miéville. It is the background for the action in Perdido Street Station and most of Iron Council.
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Geography of New Crobuzon
Situated at the confluence of the rivers Tar and Canker into the Gross Tar, it lies about 10 km from Iron Bay. An extensive railway network covers the city, with all the lines converging at Perdido Street Station.
Boroughs
- Salacus Fields
A bohemian district, popular amongst the left-wing inhabitants of New Crobuzon. Many artists either live or work in this district and it is notably more socially progressive and liberal than other districts.
- Brock Marsh
A scientific district. Due to the fact that followers of Bas-Lagian science include a broad mix of physicists; chimerists; necrochymists; mathematicians; karcists and more, the combined waste products of the inhabitants of Brock Marsh can be both dangerous and random. Badgers make popular messenger animals because of their natural immunity to these factors.
- Kinken
A Khepri ghetto, although most of the buildings are originally of the same construct as the rest of the city, they have been extensively remodelled by home beetles. Kinken is essentially the centre of Khepri culture on Bas-Lag, as it is inhabited by the descendants of the last survivors of the Khepri civilisation, who fled an unspecified catatrophe on a distant continent.
- Creekside
Khepri slum, does not make the displays of Khepri history as its more affluent cousin Kinken does. Some residents of Creekside feel that Kinken has no real claim on true Khepri culture and simply flaunts a recycled version of what little was preserved when the Khepri made their exodus to New Crobuzon.
- Flag Hill
The elite district, full of bankers, officials, wealthy artists, and Captains of Industry. It is described in Iron Council as a place of "wide-open ways and suptuous houses sheer onto the streets, backing on to shared gardens".
- Smog Bend (industry)
- Sobek Croix (has large gardens)
- Spatters (lawless slum, garuda ghetto)
- Dog Fenn (slum)
- Badside (slum)
- Kelltree (docks)
- The Crow (city centre)
- The Ribs
A poor district, known for its random, maze-like streets and named for its landmark feature of a gargantuan, partially buried skeleton. The origin of the bones are unknown, but any attempts to fully excavate them have ended in disaster.
- Glasshouse
A (Cactacae ghetto, this suburb is literally a giant greenhouse that preserves the temperature and humidity levels preferably the desert-dwelling (Cactacae
Politics of New Crobuzon
Mayors
- Rudgutter
- Eliza Stem-Fulcher (Assassinated by the original Toro)
- Triesti
Political parties
- Diverse Tendency
- Fat Sun
- Finally We Can See
- New Quill
- Three Quills
At the time of Iron Council, numerous anti-government factions have appeared. They include:
- The Caucus
A group of leftist dissidents.
- The Runagate Rampanters
Known as the RR, they are one of the original anti-parliament dissidents, having published the most popular seditionist newspaper, the Runagate Rampant, from even before the time of Perdido Street Station. Although the Caucus relies on them for a voice, they disagree on some items of policy
- The Flexible Puppeteers
A subversive performance artist group, named in memory of a previous editor of the RR, Benjamin Flex.
- Toro's Gang
A small group of urban terrorists, they fight against the tyranny of the Parliament and the Militia in the more literal sense.