[1] The co-creator and original artist of Superman, Joe Shuster, modeled the Metropolis skyline after Toronto, where he was born and lived until he was ten.

[3][4][5] Within the DC Universe, Metropolis is depicted as being one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world, having a population of 11 million citizens.

[13] In June 1976, Superman #300 featured an out-of-canon story about the infant Kal-El arriving on Earth in that year, triggering an increase in Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In that story's version of the year 2001, passing reference is made to the merging of the eastern seaboard cities from Boston to Washington, D.C., into a "newly incorporated urban center" called "Metropolis".

The most blatant of these might be the statement he cites from Action Comics #143 (April 1950), which states that the Statue of Liberty stands in "Metropolis Harbor".

In the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths comics, Smallville was often shown as being within driving distance of Metropolis,[14][15] although with no definitive location.

In terms of atmosphere, Batman writer and editor Dennis O'Neil has said that, figuratively, "Batman's Gotham City is Manhattan below 14th Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November, and Metropolis is Manhattan between 14th and 110th Streets on the brightest, sunniest July day of the year".

This happens, for example, in the three-issue 1990 mini-series of World's Finest Comics by Dave Gibbons, Steve Rude, and Karl Kesel.

In The World's Greatest Superheroes newspaper comic strip, a 1978 Sunday strip shows a map of the east coast of the United States; the map places Metropolis in Delaware and Gotham City across Delaware Bay in New Jersey, with the Metro-Narrows Bridge linking the two cities.

A map of the United States in the Secret Files & Origins Guide to the DC Universe 2000 depicts Metropolis and Gotham City (alongside Blüdhaven) as being somewhere in the tri-state area.

In the TV series Smallville, Linda Lake, a columnist for the Daily Planet, once boasted that she could see Gotham City from her new office.

[31] In Superman: The Animated Series, Bruce Wayne is shown taking his private jet aircraft to Metropolis, indicating that the two cities have at least some distance between them.

Its most noteworthy feature is a statue of Superman with an American bald eagle erected after his apparent death fighting Doomsday.

[37] In northwestern New Troy is the impoverished and crime-infested neighborhood of Suicide Slum, best known for the 1940s adventures of the Guardian and his street urchin companions the Newsboy Legion and in more contemporary times with Gangbuster.

Located north of New Troy, Bakerline is the home of newspaper reporter Jimmy Olsen and appears to be based on The Bronx in New York City.

[42] Members of the criminal organization the 100 at one point secretly used the Superman Museum as their base of operations, which was discovered by the superhero Black Lightning and his nemesis the Whale.

[8] Steelworks is the laboratory of Dr. John Henry Irons and in post-Crisis, it came to rival LexCorp as its reach expanded into many different industries.

The city is also home to the national Newstime magazine, where Clark Kent held the position of editor during the Eradicator story arc until he was fired by his superior, Collin Thornton, in The Adventures of Superman #465, for his increasingly strange behavior due to the Eradicator (including firing of some employees).

[69] After John Byrne's revamp of Superman's origins, though, Clark and Lois were reverted to working at the Daily Planet once again.

Metropolis is traditionally depicted as continuing to survive, thrive and expand well into the 30th- and 31st-century timeframes used as the backdrop of the Legion of Super-Heroes in all that series' varied incarnations to date.

The first post-Infinite Crisis version of the series as published in the "three-boot" edition has described Metropolis as having expanded over the intervening millennium up the "entire Atlantic seaboard" of North America in one issue (reminiscent of New York's future expansion in Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel and in Poul Anderson's The Corridors of Time, and to an extent Mega-City One of the Judge Dredd comics).

In Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, it is revealed that this version of Metropolis belongs to the newly restored Earth-Prime's 31st Century.

2) #12, Metropolis during the Legion's first year is described by Brainiac 5 as having a population of "78 million sentient inhabitants in the urban zone before you reach the greenbelt".

Metropolis appears in the game Injustice: Gods Among Us, in two different forms- a Prime Earth version, in which the Joker attempts and fails to destroy the city with an atomic bomb, and an alternate universe Earth version, which occurs as a result of the Joker succeeding in his plot, which also involved the death of Lois Lane and Superman's unborn son.

In the Prime universe, the statue depicts Superman standing below the globe, carrying it above his head, symbolizing that he follows the world's rules.

On the other hand, in the Regime universe, the statue depicts Superman standing above the globe with his arms folded, symbolizing that the world follows his rules, as he has become a tyrant following the destruction of the original Metropolis and the deaths of Lois Lane and their unborn son.

Metropolis is the only stage in the game to have three sections: the city streets, the top of the Daily Planet, and a museum featuring past superhero costumes and weapons.

The two sections consist of Memorial Station (which contains statues of Superman and his downfall and Lex Luthor's opposition) and the Ace O' Clubs bar.

Metropolis appears in the Justice League: Alien Invasion 3D dark ride designed and created by Sally Corporation for Warner Bros. Movie World in Gold Coast, Australia.

The city also appears in the Justice League: Battle for Metropolis dark ride created by Sally Corporation and is located at several Six Flags theme parks.