According to various comic book stories, Gotham City was founded in 1635 by a Swedish mercenary and was later taken over by the British. During the American Revolutionary War it was the site of a major battle and various occult rites were rumored to have been conducted within the city. Perhaps for these reasons Gotham is a dark and foreboding place rife with crime, grime, and corruption. It has maintained a thriving economy and is considered a major center of manufacturing, shipping, finance, arts (with its numerous museums, gallerys, and jewelry displays), and the production of giant novelty props.
In recent years Gotham has faced more than its fair share of difficulties. Numerous costumed maniacs have emerged, necessitating the construction of an asylum dedicated to the incarceration of the criminally insane (see Arkham Asylum). Unfortunately the asylum has rarely managed to cure or keep its various insane inmates for long. Gotham has also suffered from rampant crime, an artificially created plague, an earthquake, another plague, and, following yet another earthquake, a federal edict to cut off the city from the rest of the country. After a full year cut off from the United States, Gotham was once again recognized as a municipality, and the process of rebuilding is now well underway.
Several maps of Gotham City have been produced over the years. Many of them are directly based on Manhattan, while another is based on the Rhode Island coastline, and others are completely original. A map of Gotham City used in the 1989 film Batman was actually an inverted map of Vancouver, Canada. In the same movie, a map of the Axis Chemical plant was actually a map of the Capitol Hill neighbourhood in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Another fictional city in the DC Universe is Metropolis, the home of Superman.