Location from The First Law by Joe Abercrombie
The capital of the Union — a sprawling, stinking, magnificent city where wealth and poverty share walls, and the Agriont fortress watches over everything like a stone fist.
Adua smells like a city that's too large for its sewers — which it is. The wealthy districts are marble and pretension; the poor districts are mud and desperation; and the Middleway between them is the knife's edge where both worlds rub shoulders and pretend they don't see each other. The Gurkish siege devastated entire quarters — the Seed's detonation leveled the western districts and killed thousands. Rebuilt on the same rotten foundations, both literally and politically. By the Age of Madness, the inequality has only worsened, making Adua a pressure cooker with a throne on top. Everything happens in Adua because everyone with power lives in Adua, and power in the Union is the only thing that matters.
A massive walled city built where the rivers meet, dominated by the Agriont fortress on its hill. The architecture ranges from grand (the Middleway, the Kingsway, the Lords' Round) to squalid (the docks, the slums, the endless tenements). White stone and gleaming rooftops give way to smoke, filth, and overcrowding within a few streets.
Also known as: Adua, The Capital