History Main / CityInABottle

* The protagonist of Andrey Livadniy's ''Ark'' turns out to be the last "pure" descendant of the human crew of a Moon-sized (it's literally made out of the Moon) {{Generation Ship|s}}, drifting in space for millennia, during which the alien inhabitants of the various biospheres (who mutinied against the humans long ago), as well as the other human descendants (who have their own Earth-like biosphere), have forgotten that they're on a ship and reverted to more primitive technology. After millennia of lack of maintenance, the ''Ark'' is beginning to fall apart at the seams, with more and more systems shutting down. The ship's A.I. is unable to affect repairs in most areas. This, however, is not the biggest twist of the novel.

* ''Anime/Megazone23'' does this with what the inhabitants believe to be Tokyo during TheEighties; anyone who travels overseas is secretly brainwashed with memories of their "trip".

%% Also, do not suggest Kandor from ''Superman'' as it is not a valid example.

A frequent subtrope is the [[GenerationShips Generation Ship]], a huge slower-than-light vessel designed for [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin journeys lasting multiple generations]]-- in this case, with inhabitants who've either forgotten or don't know their destination.

Often a DomedHometown with a WallAroundTheWorld which may or may not be [[DoomedHometown doomed]] by its residents' [[UsedFuture collapsing infrastructure]] and the [[IdiotBall idiocy]] and [[FutureImperfect forgetfulness]] of the sheeple. If the hero is banished for noting that the place is falling apart, compare DefectorFromDecadence, IgnoredExpert. If the food supply is [[HumanResources Made Of People]], compare TownWithADarkSecret and/or PoweredByAForsakenChild.

* The homeland of ''Manga/AttackOnTitan''[='s=] main cast, sometimes referred to as "The Walled City" (it's basically a large monarchical city-state), is the ''only'' land that humanity still controls, the rest of the world having been overrun by Titans. As such, the government is totally comfortable with sending unarmed, untrained citizens to "reclaim land from the Titans" in order to maintain a comfortable population density within the city. [[spoiler: However, this turns out to be a lie, as the land within the walls is ''not'' humanity's last bastion. In fact, "The Walled City" is merely a VestigialEmpire located on the secluded island of Paradis; the rest of the world, including the superpower of Marley that dominates the nearby continent, is largely thriving and Titan-free.]]
* Paradigm City in ''Anime/TheBigO'' is a DomedHometown [[spoiler: heavily implied to be a post-apocalyptic New York City]] whose citizens all simultaneously came down with a mysterious case of total amnesia forty years back. As far as anyone can tell [[spoiler: until some foreigners show up to disabuse them of the notion]], the entire rest of the world is an unpopulated wasteland.

* The unnamed village from the Komi Naoshi oneshot, ''Island''. Though this is merely a case of ignorance, and not evil. [[spoiler: The town fell victim to land subsidence, which was interpreted by the villagers at some point or another as the world being engulfed by the sea.]] This being Komi Naoshi, the ending is happy.
* ''Anime/{{Megazone23}}'' does this with what the inhabitants believe to be Tokyo during TheEighties; anyone who travels overseas is secretly brainwashed with memories of their "trip".

* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'',

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AeonFlux'' tie in comic ''The Herodotus File'', it's revealed that the rulers of Bregna go to great lengths to prevent their citizens from learning that their city and its mortal enemy Monica were once the nation of Berognica, never mind anything about the world outside of the two walled cities.
* Inverted in ''ComicBook/AgeOfX'': while the mutants only think they're fighting in a TheSiege situation against the rest of humanity, it turns out [[spoiler: there is literary nothing outside of their "bubble" and they are trapped in an EpiphanicPrison]].
* ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'': Tickle Town in "Welcome to Tickle Town". Founder Tobias Tickle thought a nuclear war was inevitable and so sealed off his amusement park on its opening day - trapping the patrons - and teleported it deep underground. However, the war never happened.
* In ''ComicBook/GothamCityGarage'', ComicBook/LexLuthor built a dome encircling Gotham City to protect it from the gangs of marauders roving around the wastelands... and to keep everyone controlled. Thirty-five years later, no local is certain that there's anything beyond the dome other than a dangerous desert.
* ''ComicBook/LegendsOfTheDeadEarth'': In ''ComicBook/Robin1993'' Annual #5, the inhabitants of the GenerationShip Gotham believe that it is the sum total of the universe.

* ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' features a literal case: the majestic city of Baghdad is sealed inside a bottle at the request of its king and given to Dream to take care of; this allows the city to continue forever in dreams, even when the city is war-torn and battered in reality.

* The underground city of Topeka in ''Film/{{A Boy and his Dog}}'' is one of these, sheltering its genetically and culturally inbred populace from a post-apocalyptic world.
* ''Theatre/{{Brigadoon}}'', the 1954 film based on the stage play, features a Scottish village which only appears every one hundred years and became isolated based a local pastor's prayer for a miracle to protect the villagers from change. The miracle is then jeopardized by Harry's wish to leave.

* The 1981 made-for-TV movie ''Film/GoliathAwaits'' features a British ocean liner sunken by a U-Boat in 1938 ''a la'' the Lusitania, which was partially saved and transformed into an underwater version of this by a genius inventor/Chief Engineer played by Creator/ChristopherLee. Generations have grown up, and some people don't want to return to the outer world when a crew finds them 43 years later.
* ''Film/TheIsland2005''. The last remnants of humanity hope to win a state-run lottery to be resettled on an island paradise. Actually, [[spoiler: they are clones harvested for body parts by an unscrupulous corporation.]] Of course, this film is an unacknowledged remake of ''Film/{{Clonus}}'' which is about a colony of people who similarly hope to be resettled in a paradise known only to them as "America" [[spoiler:and who are likewise clones raised to provide spare organs for the rich and powerful]].
* ''Film/LogansRun'', the TropeCodifier. In the year 2274, the remnants of human civilization live in a sealed city contained beneath a cluster of geodesic domes, a utopia run by a computer that takes care of all aspects of life, including reproduction. The citizens live a hedonistic life but, to prevent overpopulation, everyone must undergo the rite of "Carrousel" when they reach the age of 30. There, they are killed under the guise of being "renewed" When Logan and Jessica escape the dome, they discover that they have been lied to and that life exists outside the dome, and that it is possible to live past 30.
* ''Film/TheMolePeople'', about a subterranean albino Sumerian race who disbelieved in the surface world.
* ''Film/{{Pandorum}}'' is set on a GenerationShip, primarily due to SpaceMadness and LaserGuidedAmnesia.
* ''Film/{{Pleasantville}}''. Here the people [[spoiler: in the TV show]] actually do know there are other people - it just never occurred to them they can leave and see them...

* ''Film/THX1138'' lived in one of these, [[spoiler: until the very end]].
* ''Film/TheVillage2004'': The film is about a village whose population lives in fear of creatures inhabiting the woods beyond it, referred to as "Those We Don't Speak Of". It is revealed that the village was founded in the late 1970s. Edward Walker, then a professor of American history at the University of Pennsylvania, approached other people he met at a grief counseling clinic, all suffering the crime-related death of loved ones. He asked them to join in creating a place where they would sustain themselves and be protected from any aspect of the outside world. They built Covington in the middle of a wildlife preserve purchased with Edward's family fortune. The head park ranger tells Kevin that the Walker Estate pays the government to keep the entire preserve a no-fly zone, while also funding the ranger corps who ensure no outside force disrupts the preserve.

* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': Airstrip One is generally considered to be one of these. Opinions vary on what the rest of the world might hold.

* In ''Literature/AcrossTheUniverseBethRevis'' by Beth Revis, the remainder of humanity is riding aboard a single, city-sized spaceship to their new home planet. The trip will take generations, so the important people have been cryogenically frozen while the rest are ruled by Eldest and his protege, Elder.
* In AndreyLivadniy's ''Ark'', the protagonist turns out to be the last "pure" descendant of the human crew of a Moon-sized (it's literally made out of the Moon) {{Generation Ship|s}}, drifting in space for millennia, during which the alien inhabitants of the various biospheres (who mutinied against the humans long ago), as well as the other human descendants (who have their own Earth-like biosphere), have forgotten that they're on a ship and reverted to more primitive technology. After millennia of lack of maintenance, the ''Ark'' is beginning to fall apart at the seams, with more and more systems shutting down. The ship's A.I. is unable to affect repairs in most areas. This, however, is not the biggest twist of the novel.

* High Sacristan, location of the Canticle Engine in Micah E. F. Martin's short story ''Literature/TheCanticle'', is the last city on Earth. Everything visible from its walls is desolate, endless dessert.
* ''Literature/TheCityAndTheStars'' is the UrExample of this trope. And its original version, ''Against The Fall of Night''. Both have a remarkably utopian vision compared to most examples, however. Diaspar really has achieved a technological utopia, so why leave? And then, of course, we're [[spoiler:introduced to Lys, the ''other'' utopian vision...]]

* Nancy Farmer's ''Literature/TheEarTheEyeAndTheArm'', set in futuristic Zimbabwe, includes an area cordoned off - much like in ''Film/TheVillage2004'' - where the people chose, generations ago, to live apart from the modern world, and where they have turned into a shamanistic backwards tribe that believes in boogey men and kills certain unwanted babies ([[spoiler:specifically twins - or, rather, ''one'' of the twins, the girl if it's a split-gender pair]]).
* One of the few (perhaps the only) novels based on the ''TabletopGame/{{Earthdawn}}'' game used this trope. A kaer, built to withstand the centuries-long invasion of the Horrors, is supposed to let its inhabitants out when the threat is over. However, [[spoiler: thanks to a Horror that slipped inside before the kaer was sealed,]] something went wrong with the mechanism designed to tell the occupants it was time to leave, and the kaer's residents are slowly dying out in their needless confinement.
* In ''Literature/TheForestOfHandsAndTeeth'', set generations after a ZombieApocalypse kills most of humanity, Mary lives in a town that is fenced in to keep the Unconsecrated (or zombies) out. [[spoiler: It is revealed that pretty much all surviving towns are like this.]]

* The third book of the ''Literature/{{Gormenghast}}'' trilogy, ''Titus Alone'' is about Titus exploring the world outside of Gormenghast. As Gormenghast is a crumbling medieval castle, he is shocked when he discovers a city of skyscrapers.

* Again, ''Literature/LogansRun''.
* Creator/EMForster's short story "Literature/TheMachineStops" features an underground city. There the inhabitants have forgotten what the surface world is like to the point of believing it is a lifeless, barren world. Believing their artificial environment is the only solace from a dead world, the protagonist of the story ends up finding otherwise with disastrous results.

* Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/NomesTrilogy'' features inch-high people known as 'Nomes' who live in a large Store and refuse to believe that there is any such thing as 'the Outside'. When the Store Nomes are visited by Nomes who are from the Outside, one of the Store Nomes' leaders actually pretends not to be able to see them. A recurring metaphor throughout the series is the RealLife bromeliad plant, which, to the frogs who live inside, is the entire world. Indeed, ''Truckers'' and its sequels, ''Diggers'' and ''Wings'' are collectively known as ''The Bromeliad Trilogy''.
* Creator/BrianAldiss's ''Non-Stop'' is also based on [[GenerationShips this concept]], but with some gleefully British plot twists.
* Saraksh from the Creator/StrugatskyBrothers' ''Literature/NoonUniverse'' is a "planet in a bottle" -- the index of refraction of their atmosphere causes them to believe that they live on the inside of a hollow sphere, and they're very confused by the arrival of Earthlings.
* Creator/MichaelMarshallSmith's ''Only Forward'' has one of these - a 'neighbourhood' which long ago sealed itself in and indoctrinated its residents to believe that they live in the only surviving human settlement surrounded by a barren, irradiated wasteland (which always takes longer than the scientists thought to become safe again). Only the high-ups know that there's a perfectly viable world all around it. Worryingly, it's not the scariest Neighbourhood out there.
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's novel ''Literature/OrphansOfTheSky'' and the two short stories it's based on feature this trope. It is about a [[GenerationShips multi-generational space craft]] where the inhabitants lost the knowledge that they were on a ship (along with most other knowledge) after a failed mutiny, so the current generation thinks the whole universe is just the ship.
* The Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin short story "Paradises Lost" from the collection ''The Birthday of the World'' is the generation ship take on this, with the twist that the ship isn't stranded. Some of the people on the ship (by the end of the story, a large majority) believe that there's nothing outside the ship and "the journey is all". A minority remember the original purpose of the voyage, which is to explore and possibly colonize a far-flung planet.
* The inhabitants of Paradyzja, the titular SpaceStation from the novel by Creator/JanuszZajdel, are prefectly aware of TheWallAroundTheWorld keeping them safe from random Earth terrorists as well as the vacuum of space... [[spoiler: except the terrorists don't exist (Earth is peacefully trading with Paradyzja, selling it all those nifty electronics that keep the populace under control) and the "station" is really a complex of windowless buildings on the surface of planet Tartarus. Travel between it and the mines is not really space travel - it's just a hovercraft trip with a long stop in the middle to simulate space flight.]]
* In ''[[Creator/PhilipKDick The Penultimate Truth]]'' [[spoiler: humans live underground, convinced by their authorities the surface is locked in an EndlessWar fought by the robots they build and repair. It's only when Nick, the protagonist, has to get out to the surface to obtain a vital piece of equipment that he learns the war has ended a long time ago]].
* ''Phoenix Without Ashes'' by Creator/HarlanEllison is set on a massive GenerationShip composed of hundreds of completely independent and isolated biospheres, each featuring a different civilization. Originally written as a screenplay for a television series, the main character is from a SpaceAmish biosphere, whose inhabitants threaten to execute him for blasphemy when he tries to inform them of his recent discovery -- that they are all on a giant spaceship.
* "The Allegory of the Cave" from Plato's ''Literature/TheRepublic'' uses such a society as a metaphor for the human soul and the philosopher.
* The planktonic humans from the short story "Surface Tension" -- genetically modified descendants of a crashed colony vessel, whose survivors deemed the planet unlivable by anyone larger than a water flea -- believe they live in a complete universe bounded at top and bottom. In fact, they live in a puddle, and the "space expedition" they launch only travels to the next puddle over.

* H. M. Hoover's ''This Time of Darkness'' tells of [[spoiler:a city several kilometers underground]] whose inhabitants don't realize that they're [[spoiler:basically a slave race whose labor is being used to keep the above-ground inhabitants in luxury]]. There's a strong contrast between the CityInABottle environment ([[spoiler:an incredibly filthy city with low lighting, poor food, cramped living quarters, and no choice of clothing or haircuts... not to mention that generations of malnutrition has made the entire race unfit and ugly]]) and the other environment... and then there's contrast between ''both'' of these environments and [[spoiler:the wild outdoors that the children get cast out into, and the town they eventually reach]]. The basic premise is reused in an episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'', with a planet in the middle of an ice age. The apparently pristine domed city on the planet's surface [[spoiler:is supported by the efforts of slave laborers in an underground complex, who have no idea that the city exists and believe themselves to be the last remnants of their civilization. Dissenters in the city are brainwashed and sent to be laborers]].

** Small creatures (Fraggles) living in a cave which exits to a mousehole in a tinker's shop (or a lighthouse, if you saw the UK version). One fraggle, "Uncle Traveling Matt," wanders the outside world, sending postcards which show great places of geography (and mundane, everyday objects) from an innocent's point of view.

* The 1973 Canadian production ''Series/TheStarlost'' featured a generation ship where disaster had killed the crew, while the passengers had lost the knowledge that they were indeed aboard a ship. Not to mention the disaster had altered the ship's course to collide with a star. The premise was interesting, but Creator/HarlanEllison was disappointed enough with the end results to affix his [[AlanSmithee Cordwainer Bird]] pseudonym to it.

** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E8ForTheWorldIsHollowAndIHaveTouchedTheSky For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky]]" features this on a [[GenerationShips generation ship]].

* ''{{Radio/Earthsearch}}'': This BBC RadioDrama has the protagonists encounter another ship like their own with the 'colony that's forgotten they're on a spaceship' version. The locals are panicked by the sight of their spacesuits, assuming they are monsters. A ReasonableAuthorityFigure takes them into custody, but when they reveal they're searching for Earth has them sentenced to death by hanging, the fate of anyone who suggests the Earth is a real place instead of the afterlife it's assumed to be. Fortunately they're rescued by the Underpeople, inhabitants of another colony on the spaceship, who mention that any attempt to show the Earth Worshippers outer space causes them to GoMadFromTheRevelation or just accuse the Underpeople of creating illusions to deceive them. Incidentally, the author James Follett also wrote a prequel novel ''Earthsearch: Mindwarp'' based on this concept, in which the protagonists of an UndergroundCity go in search of the dreaded Outdoors.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Dialect}}'': The premise of the game is that the players exist in this sort of community and have developed their own language. They reconnect to the outside world, and the rest is exploring the changes in language.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
** In the early module ''The Lost City'', the few residents of the underground city who aren't drugged out of their minds by the evil priesthood are still convinced there's nothing but desert on the surface, and nothing but unbeatable monsters in the surrounding tunnels.
** The shadow elves, when they finally found their way to the surface, found themselves in the midst of an uninhabitable wasteland (the Broken Lands). They concluded that the whole surface was like this, so returned to their underground realm, where they didn't learn of their mistake for centuries.

* ''VideoGame/DarkChronicle'': The city of Palm Brinks was cut off from the outside world by a giant stone wall, the only exits being the train station and main gate. This was actually done by the mayor to [[spoiler: protect the citizens from the villain. He was after a mystical artifact called the Atlamillia (actually three jewels but the city has the red one), and he didn't want to destroy the city with the artifact floating around in there somewhere. The male hero, Max, has been carrying the jewel around for some time now, and no one noticed.]]
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'': A major supernatural cataclysm ripped the world AND its spirit apart, meaning the various island cities ripped apart from the former continents don't even remember that a few decades ago, there were others. For all they know, there has only been their island, the sea, the sky, ''and nothing else''. The protagonist's job is to fix the screwed up problems that each island has developed so they can stitch their world back together.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':
** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'': The Vaults were constructed to shelter a human population safely underground in the event of a nuclear war. In theory, as radiation levels decreased the Vaults would open to the outside world and the survivors would rebuild civilization, but Vault 101 remained closed for two hundred years, and the Overseers tell the population that the surface is still inhabitable. Whether or not it remains a CityInABottle depends on the player's decisions.[[note]]It wasn't always sealed, despite it being the main focus of the "experiment". There were ''several'' expeditions that gradually expanded the knowledge of the outside world (that and radroaches). Eventually, James brought the Lone Wanderer there to raise them in safety before he had to leave 19 years later.[[/note]]
** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': The Nellis Air Force Base's population of explosive-loving Boomers traces its origins to Vault 34 and has a strict isolationist policy, enforced upon the outside world with artillery fire. The Boomers make everything they need inside the airbase, and only have one goal outside its walls. They are pretty ignorant of the outside world; while they have gathered some intel through binoculars, they're surprised that the courier even speaks the same language when they drop by.
%%** Vault 13 ''would'' have been this, but their water chip broke, so they had to leave.
%%*** Actually, the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series plays this trope straight -- the Vaults ''weren't'' intended to shield humanity from a nuclear attack, they were a series of social experiments designed to test the occupants' reactions to stressful situations. One Vault contained a population of 999 women and one man, one was rigged to open six months after it was sealed (when the inhabitants were told it would be sealed for the next 200 years), one was even rigged so that it ''couldn't'' close, and so on. Needless to say, this is pretty much a CrapsackWorld combined with this trope, with a hearty dash of AfterTheEnd thrown in for good measure.
%%*** It isn't clear that the 'Vaults as experiments' notion isn't a {{retcon}}, they may or may not have been in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout|1}}'', were mentioned to be by the Enclave president in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'', were confused by the addition of 'Vault 0' in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout Tactics|BrotherhoodOfSteel}}'', and were vastly expanded upon in ''Fallout 3''. Whether or not the experiments had a ''point'' is a matter of opinion, but then again, it was the [[GovernmentConspiracy Old Enclave]] that did it. They weren't exactly concerned with human life other than themselves.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' revealed that [[spoiler:the Reapers themselves are kind of walking cities in bottles. Dialogue was removed that details the Reaper harvesting process. EDI states that the captive humans were being reduced to their basic components by being dissected down to the atomic level. The data from the process could then be uploaded into a Reaper's neural network, thus storing the knowledge and essence of the individual that was liquefied in the process. Harbinger indicates that being turned into a Reaper is a form of rebirth.]]

* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VII'' featured a bonus level in the form of a Temple in a Bottle.
* In an in-Verse example, in the ''VideoGame/MysteryCaseFiles'' game ''Return to Ravenhearst'', there's a map on the wall of Gwendolyn and Charlotte's home-schooling classroom that depicts nothing but an outline of England and Wales, with "Unknown" scrawled on the vague, fading-out edges of Scotland, Ireland, and the French coast. The only settlement on the map is Blackpool, nearest town to the Ravenhearst estate.
* [[http://twofoldsecret.com/games/sanctuary-17/ Sanctuary 17]] is one of these.
* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', the residents of the Kingdom of East Mikado really do believe that there isn't anything outside--the thought never once occurs to anyone. They are so convinced East Mikado contains the entirety of humanity that a major character finds a novel set in France and immediately assumes it's a fictional country. It's not that they're super-ignorant: [[spoiler:The Archangels, led by Gabriel, are deliberately subtly influencing the thoughts of the people of East Mikado in this way, treating the place much like a human ant farm.]]
* Walled City 99 in ''VideoGame/{{Stray|2022}}'' was originally built as a metropolis-sized bunker to protect its human inhabitants from [[spoiler:a major plague ravaging the world outside and generally making it unlivable for civilization]]. However, by the time the game begins the humans have already died out, leaving behind their robotic successors in complete isolation. Many outright consider "Outside" to be nothing more than fantasy, with there being very few exceptions.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAlpha Gaiden'' the American Sunbelt region is similar to the Pleasantville example above. For some reason, it never occurred to any of these people to go visit the ''[[Anime/AfterWarGundamX Gundam X]]'' crew up in Canada or the ''Anime/CombatMechaXabungle'' guys across the sea.

* In ''VideoGame/ZenoClash2'' the primitive, brutish 'world' of Zenozoik is discovered at a moment of revelation to be only a long-isolated fragment of a larger, far more technologically and socially advanced planet that has intentionally imprisoned the inhabitants there.

* The "Zoojacks" in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''.

* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', the "Fantasy Wasteland" storyline starts with Grace starting out from "[[https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/fantasywasteland-01 underground Dwarven Ruins]]" which are a parody of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'''s vaults.

[[folder:Web Original]]

* In the ''Literature/FineStructure'' story "[[http://qntm.org/?crushed Crushed Underground]]", [[spoiler:a revolution overthrows the governor of such a city - until he reveals that the surface of earth outside the city really ''is'' uninhabitable.]]

* Online role-playing often uses settings like this, nicknamed a "jam jar". Player characters typically band together to [[EscapeFromTheCrazyPlace search for a way out of the "jar"]], while the game master and non-player characters try to keep them in for [[ExcusePlot whatever nefarious purpose]].

* The underground hatch (and likely their old city of Beautopia) that Susan Strong and the Hyooman tribe live in starts out this way on ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''.

* ''Literature/RunningOutOfTime'' has this with the village of Clifton, set up as a historical village cut off from the outside world. The children have no idea it's not really 1840 and is instead 1996, and there's an entire world outside, while the parents and adults who know better are obligated to keep up the {{Masquerade}} or be punished for breaking the illusion.

* Tokyo Jupiter in ''Anime/RahXephon''.
* Jiiha village in ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', where Simon and Kamina hail from. Kamina steadfastly believes in the surface world, much to the dismay of the chief, who only believes its existence once Yoko and a Ganmen crash through the ceiling.

* ''Film/TheIsland2005''. The last remnants of humanity hope to win a state-run lottery to be resettled on an island paradise. Actually, [[spoiler: they are clones harvested for body parts by an unscrupulous corporation.]]
** Of course, this film is an unacknowledged remake of ''Film/{{Clonus}}'' which is about a colony of people who similarly hope to be resettled in a paradise known only to them as "America" [[spoiler:and who are likewise clones raised to provide spare organs for the rich and powerful]].

* The D'ni, as seen in the ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' novel ''The Book of Ti'ana'', are a strange example. The central hub of D'ni culture is indeed located underground, tunelling deep and wide in all directions. But they also have access to special books which can transport them to a theoretically infinite number of Ages, many of which are outdoorsy. But when Atrus and his team are building upwards through disused tunnels, they still encounter resistance from politicians who believe that, in their homeworld, the "Surface" is an impossibility!
** Though most of the political opposition to tunneling to the surface has less to do with a belief in its impossibility, and more to do with a belief that D'ni has nothing to gain by going to the surface (they can write linking books for any surface resource they need) and much to lose (if there are hostile dwellers on the surface they may follow the D'ni back down the tunnel and sack the city.)

* H. M. Hoover's ''This Time of Darkness'' tells of [[spoiler:a city several kilometers underground]] whose inhabitants don't realize that they're [[spoiler:basically a slave race whose labor is being used to keep the above-ground inhabitants in luxury]]. There's a strong contrast between the CityInABottle environment ([[spoiler:an incredibly filthy city with low lighting, poor food, cramped living quarters, and no choice of clothing or haircuts... not to mention that generations of malnutrition has made the entire race unfit and ugly]]) and the other environment... and then there's contrast between ''both'' of these environments and [[spoiler:the wild outdoors that the children get cast out into, and the town they eventually reach]].
** The basic premise is reused in an episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'', with a planet in the middle of an ice age. The apparently pristine domed city on the planet's surface [[spoiler:is supported by the efforts of slave laborers in an underground complex, who have no idea that the city exists and believe themselves to be the last remnants of their civilization. Dissenters in the city are brainwashed and sent to be laborers]].

* The One State in ''Literature/{{We}}''.

* On a less [[StealthPun philosophical]] note, cities in UsefulNotes/AncientGreece were akin to micro-countries, and looked down on everything and everyone outside the city's boundaries as uncivilized and barbaric.
** While we're on the subject [[PlatonicCave Plato's Cave]] is arguably the UrExample.

* Turned on its head in ''Film/DarkCity''. Everyone in the city is subtly programmed to ''believe'' that there is an "outside" to their [[CityNoir monstrous city]] (which is locked in [[AlwaysNight everlasting nighttime]]), the beautiful sun-lit Shell Beach. Everyone is utterly certain they know the way to Shell Beach, but if someone actually tries to find it, the only train that supposedly goes to Shell Beach never stops at any train station, all roads going there [[ClosedCircle simply go in circles]] or end in front of walls or canals, and in the end, [[spoiler:Shell Beach was only an illusion]]. In reality, [[spoiler:the city is all there is, a huge edifice drifting in the darkness of outer space, created and controlled by the Strangers, aliens who abducted humans from... some other place no one can remember anymore, because the Strangers control their memories]].