Location from Avatar: The Last Airbender by Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko
The largest city in the world, ringed by impenetrable walls and divided into class-stratified rings — a place where the Dai Li ensure that no one speaks of the war.
Ba Sing Se is a city of walls within walls, each one separating those who have from those who have not. The Outer Wall has never been breached by conventional means — it is the Earth Kingdom's greatest achievement and its greatest prison. Inside, the Dai Li maintain order through surveillance, censorship, and brainwashing. The Lower Ring teems with refugees who will never see the Upper Ring. The Middle Ring hums with commerce and willful ignorance. The Upper Ring exists in perfected denial — lavish parties, exquisite gardens, and the absolute fiction that the Hundred Year War is not happening. Earth King Kuei is a puppet who has never seen his own Lower Ring. Long Feng and the Dai Li are the true power. The city smells of dust and jasmine and coal smoke depending on which ring you stand in. Iroh opens a tea shop here. The walls keep enemies out and truth trapped inside.
Concentric stone walls of staggering height encircle a city that stretches to the horizon. The Lower Ring is cramped and dusty with crowded markets and tenement housing. The Middle Ring has shops, restaurants, and modest homes. The Upper Ring gleams with manicured gardens, estates, and the Earth King's palace — a massive green-roofed complex on a hill. Earthbender-powered monorails connect the rings.
Also known as: Impenetrable City, the walled city, Ba Sing Se