Attack on Titan is inspired by a little known town in Germany called Nordlingen

Attack on Titan’s setting is actually inspired by a little known town in Germany that is over 1000 years old, let’s tour Nordlingen.

Attack on Titan remains one of the most popular manga series in the world and with the anime adaptation set to conclude this November, it’s time to revisit the series’ original inspirations. This includes the charming town of Nordlingen, Germany, which was used as inspiration for the cities of Paradis Island – let’s take a tour through this quaint town and explore how Attack on Titan changed its landscape.

Attack on Titan is inspired by charming German town called Nordlingen

Attack on Titan author Hajime Isayama has taken many inspirations from natural history, geopolitics, and popular culture – including for the architecture of the series’ main setting itself, Shiganshina District.

It turns out that Isayama based many of the homes, cities, and districts of Attack on Titan on a small German settlement called Nordlingen – a town in the Swabia region of Bavaria.

Records indicate that the Nordlingen settlement dates back to the year 898 AD. That’s around 1,110 years before the Attack on Titan manga made its debut in the Bessatsu Shonen Magazine.

The town was built in the impact crater of a meteor that struck the Earth approximately 15 million years ago, leaving the surrounding area covered in over 72,000 tons of micro-diamonds – on a bright day, many of the buildings of Nordlingen sparkle in the sunlight.

Unsurprisingly, the town has been inundated with tourists since the Attack on Titan series exploded in popularity. A video from the Hangry By Nature YouTube channel exploring Nordlingen uncovered a wooden door that had been vandalized by hundreds of Attack on Titans fans.

Some of the messages include “Isayama is genius”, “Jean be my husband”, and “AOT lovers unite” as well as multiple doodle drawings of some of the series’ most infamous characters.

Nordlingen itself is only one of three German towns that still have completely intact city walls – although their height certainly doesn’t come close to the walls of Shiganshina.

Those barriers, built hundreds of feet into the air by the Eldians trapped within, were inspired by the picturesque mountain ranges that Isayama grew up alongside in Oita, Japan.

In an interview with NHK, Isayama revealed that his hometown felt isolated from the rest of civilization thanks to the imposing mountains surrounding him and that he constantly wondered what ‘monsters’ lived beyond them.

Attack on Titan may be set in a fictional world with its geography indicating that the wider world is modeled from Madagascar, Africa – however, the show has a distinctly German flavor to it with many of the characters having German names such as Jaeger, Kruger, and Braun.

If you recognize Nordlingen from something other than Attack on Titan, the town was where the Glass Elevator bursts over in the 1971 movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

If you ever find yourself visiting Germany, or if you are already a resident, there are plenty of exciting things to do in Nordlingen, aside from everything Attack on Titan:

Attack on Titan season 4 part 4 is scheduled to premiere on November 4, via Crunchyroll.

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