Reading list · Places in a book
The real places in The Great Gatsby
Every location below is a real place The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is actually set in — verified against the book and mapped so you can read your way there before you go.
3 real places · grounded to The Great Gatsby
What real places is The Great Gatsby set in?
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is set in 3 real places you can visit: New York City, Long Island's Gold Coast, and The valley of ashes — each a location the novel actually unfolds in.
- New York City (Manhattan)
- Long Island's Gold Coast (West Egg & East Egg)
- The valley of ashes (Corona, Queens)
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New York City
Manhattan
The climactic confrontation unfolds in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, and Nick, Gatsby, and the Buchanans drive into Manhattan over the Queensboro Bridge - Fitzgerald's Jazz-Age city of hotels and speakeasies.
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Long Island's Gold Coast
West Egg & East Egg
Gatsby's mansion and the Buchanans' house face each other across a bay: Fitzgerald drew West Egg and East Egg from the Great Neck and Sands Point peninsulas of Long Island's North Shore, where he was living in 1922-24.
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The valley of ashes
Corona, Queens
The grey industrial wasteland between West Egg and Manhattan, presided over by the fading eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, maps to the Corona ash dumps of Queens - since cleared for Flushing Meadows.
Reading your way into The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald's 1925 novel is a New York book to its bones. Its geography is exact enough to walk: the mansions of the North Shore, the ash flats along the old Flushing road, and the Jazz-Age hotels of Manhattan. The places below are drawn from the novel's own settings and mapped to locations you can still stand in today.