Duckburg

Duckburg /ˈdʌkbɜrɡ/ is the fictional city, located in the fictional U.S. state of Calisota, that serves as the home of Donald Duck; Scrooge McDuck; Huey, Dewey, and Louie; Daisy Duck and most of their supporting cast. Duckburg was first mentioned in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #49 in 1944, and was created by Carl Barks.

The city is populated by various anthropomorphized animals, with dogs, different birds (including ducks, geese and chickens) and pigs as the most dominant ones. The mayor of the city is often depicted as a pig, whose name most of the time goes unmentioned and is referred instead by readers as the Pig Mayor. However, in some stories the office of mayor is held by various dog characters.

The size and structure of Duckburg varied in the works by Barks: it was adjusted to better fit the story he wanted to tell; it could vary from a small town to a medium-sized city, to a bustling metropolis. Later writers and artists most of the time also continues this tradition. In one specific story by Barks, Monsterville (1961), Duckburg was even transformed into a futuristic city by Gyro Gearloose, however it proved that the citizens were not ready for the high level of technology that the new city provided. Thus the city was turned back to its old city structure.

In comic writer Don Rosa's stories, Duckburg and the state of Calisota is located on the West Coast of the United States, though Carl Barks himself and other writers often leave the city's location more vaguely defined. However, in Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, the author alludes to where exactly he has situated Duckburg: "I won't bother to say precisely where I situated Duckburg and Calisota on America's west coast... but if you get out a good map and compare the coastline, you'll see that I stuck the old gold-prospector's adopted hometown directly across the bay from a very appropriately named actual city." Knowing how Don Rosa used gags, it is likely that this city would be Eureka, California (Eureka meaning 'I found it'!). This fits with the river and a large forest south of Eureka. In the DuckTales episode "Double O' Duck", a map is shown which shows Duckburg as being located somewhere in Virginia or North Carolina.

There are no references to the governor, legislature, Capitol, etc., of Calisota in any of the many stories about Duckburg. However, Duckburg seems to have its own governor, if it is not a sort of city-state. In more than one story a "Duckburg embassy" has been shown, which would place it outside the US at a diplomatic level. In the story Treasure of Marco Polo (Uncle Scrooge #64, 1966) by Carl Barks, the Duckburg embassy displays a flag of Duckburg, which consists of a white duck over a green field. However, in the Don Rosa story "His Majesty, McDuck" (Uncle Scrooge Adventures #14, Gladstone Aug. 1989) Scrooge gains a short-lived independence from the United States for Killmotor Hill, thus placing Duckburg within the United States.

The most prominent landmark in Duckburg is Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin, a giant building sitting on Killmotor Hill (formerly known as Killmule Hill) in the center of town. The money bin contains both office space, Scrooge's private living quarters and, most famously, three cubic acres of money, the results of Scrooge's lifetime of business and treasure-seeking adventures. Another major landmark in some stories is a large statue of Duckburg's founder, Cornelius Coot.

Duckburg is a major center for Space exploration, mainly operated and overseen by Gyro Gearloose, and has had expeditions to the Moon, Mars, Venus, the Asteroids, and more remote parts of the Galaxy. The city also features a sea port and is in proximity of a large forest called the Black Forest and to several mountains, the most notable being "Old Demon Tooth", usually depicted as a towering pointed peak leaning slightly to the side. The main river of the city is the Tulebug River, first mentioned in The Money Well (1958) by Carl Barks, and it is located near Killmotor Hill.

Duckburg is home to Yarvard University (a play on the universities of Harvard and Yale), an institution more notable for its athletic teams than for its academic achievements. It also has had international students, like the bey of El Dagga from Egypt, who is mentioned in Yarvard's first appearance; Donald Duck and the Mummy's Ring by Carl Barks from 1943. One of the things the bey learned at the university was that mummies do not eat. Duckburg is also the home of the Billionaires Club of some of which Scrooge McDuck, John D. Rockerduck and, according to some stories, Flintheart Glomgold are influential members. Duckburg also has a Ritz Hotel, first mentioned in Carl Barks' story Turkey with All the Schemings (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #148, 1953) at which Scrooge McDuck had a business meeting with Donald Duck; who was disguised as the Duke of Baloni, the World's Second-Richest Duck at that time. In the same story Scrooge later buys the Ritz Hotel and he still owns it in Don Rosa's story Attaaaaaack! (2000).

Located near Duckburg is a farm owned and run by Grandma Duck, a direct descendant of Cornelius Coot and Donald's paternal grandmother. Donald's cousin Gus Goose also lives on Grandma's farm as a farmhand. The farm is often a gathering site for various Duck family holiday celebrations.

In other languages, Duckburg (for example Entenhausen in German, Ankeborg in Swedish, Rațburg in Romanian, Andeby in Danish, or Patópolis in Brazilian Portuguese) is not only home of "the Ducks", but Mickey Mouse and friends live there too.

History

The unofficial Calisota map shown on the left indicates the location of Duckburg. The map resembles a map of Northern California (right), with Duckburg corresponding to a coastal area in Humboldt County near the city of Eureka, located on Humboldt Bay, California.

In the comics by Don Rosa, Duckburg was a fort built on Killmule Hill on June 17, 1579 by British explorer Sir Francis Drake in the area he named Nova Albion, in what would later become the state of Calisota. It was originally known as "Fort Drakeborough". In the year 1818, during the Spanish colonization of California (1697–1821), the fort had been handed over by its departing British occupants to the visiting hunter and fur trader Cornelius Coot, who Americanized the British name of the fort to "Fort Duckburg". "Drake" means a male duck, while "borough" and "burg" are synonyms. Cornelius Coot turned the old fort into a trading post for fellow traders and hunters, and their families. Eventually a small town grew around the fort on top of Killmule Hill. In Carl Barks' story The Day Duckburg Got Dyed (1957), it is revealed that Cornelius Coot at some point in Duckburg's history managed to pipe mountain water into the town. During the American Civil War, a decisive battle was fought on top of an unnamed hill in Duckburg, led by the Duckburgian General Stonewall Duck. It is not known on which side the city fought, but with General Stonewall Duck being based on the real-life Stonewall Jackson, it can be assumed they fought for the Confederacy. However, the real-life state of California, in which the fictional state of Calisota is located according to Don Rosa, was a Unionist state, making Duckburg a more likely member of the Union.

Duckburg remained a quiet, small town until the arrival of wealthy businessman Scrooge McDuck. He had bought the old fort and the hill from fellow prospector Casey Coot, a descendant of Cornelius Coot, during the Klondike Gold Rush in 1899. Scrooge proceeded to construct his famous Money Bin on the location, which would eventually cause McDuck an incredible variety of problems and dilemmas. The first one was caused by the Junior Woodchucks, who were squatting in the site and using the old fort as their headquarters, even though they did not have legal title to it. The dispute led to a small war in 1902, involving the United States marines and navy, led by then President Theodore Roosevelt. Eventually however, the construction of the Money Bin, and Scrooge's establishment of various businesses in and around Duckburg, caused Duckburg's population to swell, and turned the small town into a bustling city and a global financial centre within a few decades.

References

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