Where is Springfield?

This question has left many a Simpson's fan going deep into the show's history for clues as to where Springfield is. In 2012 Matt Groening revealed the state of Springfield to the Smithsonian but was the answer hidden in plain sight before that? Delving into Springfield's geography is a minefield of contradictory information but the answer may lie in the history of video games. How? Let's take a look...

First of all only 35 US states have a town named Springfield so we can straight away eliminate 15 US states. So from hours of research into real life geography that was more or less what I got but when I delved into the geography of Springfield in the Simpson's I could eliminate many more. Moe states that the ZIP code for Springfield is 58008, comparing this to real american ZIP codes this relates to the town of Barney (really?) in North Dakota. So have we discovered where the Simpson's live? No. Springfield exists on the coast meaning we can wittle down that state number to give us about 10 possible candidates. Can we bring this number down anymore? Only if we delve into the history of video games and relive the most terrifying events in it's history (no not BEN Drowned!).

In post 2 of the Game Lounge we explored the dark legend of Polybius. Polybius was supposedly in Portland, Oregon giving us our state name as in the Springfield mall Bart walks past this arcade cabinet. This episode aired in 2006, 6 years before Matt Groening confirmed that Oregon is the state in which the Simpson's live. But Polybius was 1981, it's unlikely to still have been in Oregon in 2006 if it existed at all. That's what I thought too until I took a deeper look at Polybius after 1981 (don't worry we'll get back to the Simpons after this digression).

In 2011, a man in Newport, Oregon supposedly discovered the Polybius arcade cabinet in a storage locker. However, as with much of Polybius' history, there is little evidence to prove it was there. According to it's discoverer, the owners of the locker intended to auction it back in Portland where it all began. Another brief digression in a 2013 retro gaming expo in Portland there was a homebrew game named Polybius on the Atari 2600. Back to Newport we see a lot of favourable qualities here in relation to Springfield. Newport, as the name suggests, is on the coast. As we learned above Springfield also has a coast. The nearest city to Newport is Portland, where Matt Groening was born and it seems to be about as far away as Capital City is from Springfield taking over 2 hours by car.

But Oregon has a Springfield closer than Newport so wouldn't it make more sense if that Springfield was the Simpson's Springfield? If you take Polybius' history into account the cabinet being in Newport in 2006 seems likely as it was discovered there in 2011 and not in Springfield in Oregon. Even with all of this though the Springfield in the Simpson's could be the Oregon Springfield in place of Newport due to the Simpson's skewed geography with West Springfield being twice the size of Texas as an example. So is Springfield in Oregon? It is definitely the most likely candidate and using Polybius as our guide the machine seems to have only stayed in Oregon meaning Springfield Mall at least is in Oregon.

#polybius #simpsons