Location from The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman (comics), Frank Darabont (TV), Telltale Games
A fifty-thousand-person city-state that rebuilt pre-apocalyptic class structure wholesale — the largest community in the show, where your old-world job title determines your new-world social class.
The Commonwealth is the show's final question: if you could rebuild the old world, should you? Governor Pamela Milton rebuilt class stratification, wealth inequality, and political corruption because that's what she knew. Doctors live in nice houses. Laborers live in barracks. Your pre-outbreak profession determines your new life. The comfort is real — ice cream, electricity, medical care, education — and the inequality is also real. The lower classes do the dangerous work. The upper classes make the decisions. It's America before the fall, walls and all, and the show asks whether this is civilization or just organized exploitation. For Rick's people, the Commonwealth is both a miracle and a warning: this is what they've been fighting to build, and this is what it looks like when someone else builds it first.
A massive walled settlement centered around a sports stadium, with surrounding neighborhoods organized by social class. The upper district has restored houses, manicured lawns, and functioning bakeries. The lower district has cramped housing, longer work hours, and less access to resources. Uniformed soldiers in white armor patrol the streets. There's a functioning bakery, ice cream shops, and a concert venue. It looks like a small American city — which is exactly the point and exactly the problem.
Also known as: The Commonwealth, CW