[2][3] "Clues" regarding Springfield's climate, geology, history, distance from real cities, or political alignment, which are found in numerous episodes of the series, are intentionally contradictory.

[5] Groening liked Second City Television's setting of Melonville, a town with a large cast of recurring characters, and used it as inspiration for The Simpsons.

[5][4] The fictional city's unknown geography is a recurring joke in the series; the Dayton Daily News called it the "riddle wrapped in an enigma that is Springfield's location.

"[10] Episodes frequently make fun of the fact that Springfield's state is unidentifiable, by adding further conflicting descriptions, obscuring onscreen map representations, and interrupting conversational references.

[notes 1] David Silverman, who directed the movie and various episodes of the series, joked that Springfield is located in the fictional state of "North Takoma".

[23] Springfield's fictional geography is shown to be comically varied and includes forests, meadows, mountain ranges, a desert, a glacier, beaches, badlands, canyons, swamps, a harbor, waterholes, and waterways.

However, in various episodes, it has been subject to many natural disasters, including heatwaves, blizzards, avalanches, earthquakes, acid rain, floods, hurricanes, lightning strikes, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions.

[36] The locations of the renovated Kwik-E-Marts were: Bladensburg, Maryland/Washington, D.C.; Burbank, California; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Henderson/Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Mountain View/San Francisco; New York City; Orlando/Lake Buena Vista, Florida; Seattle;[37] and Vancouver/Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada.

[38] These 12 locations, as well as the majority of other North American 7-Elevens, sold products found in The Simpsons, such as "Buzz Cola", "Krusty-O's", "Squishees", pink frosted "Sprinklicious doughnuts", and other Simpsons-themed merchandise.

Homer Simpson, Lenny Leonard, and Carl Carlson often visit the bar after a day of work at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

Among the plant's employees are Homer Simpson, Lenny Leonard, and Carl Carlson, and Burns' assistant Waylon Smithers.

Mutated fish with more than two eyes are often shown in the lake behind the power plant, which has a large pipe pumping nuclear waste into it.

During their brief tenure at the store, Bart and Milhouse discover a secret room filled with bootleg videotapes of extremely rare or illegal subjects.

The season 25 episode "White Christmas Blues" reveals that competition from the Southpaw Superstore forced Flanders to downsize to a mall cart, the "Leftorium Express", which he splits with a cosmetic saleswoman.

In the season 29 episode "Left Behind", the Leftorium closes for good, leaving Flanders unemployed until he finds a new job as Bart Simpson's new teacher.

[46] The Springfield Mall is a fictional shopping mall that features comical fictional stores and pastiches, such as the Happy Market, Cost-Mo, Girdles N' Such, Eye Caramba, The Ear Piercery, Happy Sailor Tattoo Parlor, Love Your Computer, Gum4Less, Popular Books, the Leftorium, Nick's Bowling Shop, Stoner's Pot Palace, Bookacchino's, Moe's Express (a mini version of Moe's Tavern), a Mapple Store (a parody of the Apple Store), numerous knockoff Starbucks coffee shops, and several Krusty Burgers.

Springfield Elementary is depicted as a grossly underfunded school that suffers from the incompetence and apathy of its administration, teachers, staff, and students.

Other staff members include janitor Groundskeeper Willie, music teacher Dewey Largo, bus driver Otto Mann, and cafeteria chef Lunchlady Doris.

The most interesting way to pass time at the home is to "stake yourself out a good spot at the starin' window",[50] which overlooks nothing but a barren tree, and bingo (the prize being a banana).

It is often the site of town meetings, where the citizens hold a vote to approve proposals in an attempt to fix an issue facing the city.

While on their road trip to Itchy & Scratchy Land, the Simpsons visit Five Corners, where they each "stand in five different states while holding hands".

The location is visited again in "The Bob Next Door", where Sideshow Bob plots to kill Bart at the marker where the location's unique property would result in a lack of extraterritorial jurisdiction, explaining it as: "I can stand in one state, fire a gun in a second state, the bullet will travel through the third, hitting you in the fourth, so you fall dead in the fifth.

No single act is against any law, but their sum total is the greatest murder..."[52] The fictional city of Shelbyville is Springfield's rival.

Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook are also mentioned in episode 18 of the TV series Supernatural by Sam Winchester, as locations of past Shtriga activity.

As a small easter egg, during a flu outbreak in Springfield, the hospital only received schemas in Norwegian, which was later confirmed via close-up.

Marge arrives in North Haverbrook and finds a desolate ghost town, where the faulty monorail derailed, causing a disaster, chasing away most of their residents and scaring away investors.

The remaining North Haverbrook locals have since denied the monorail's existence, presumably blaming Lanley for the whole thing that ruined their town's reputation.

A resident scientist from Germany, Sebastian Cobb, was the only one willing to help Marge out and save the passengers on the Springfield Monorail from suffering the same fate as North Haverbrook.

After Bart is awarded a driver's license, he gets sick of countless errands and goes for a drive and eventually finds North Haverbrook, and falls in love with a girl named Darcy.

In the episode "Midnight Towboy", Homer initially goes for a bottle of milk in a little town near Springfield named Guidopolis, where he then subsequently becomes a tow truck driver and is introduced to the vehicle recovery sector.