My Lion King Forum

I was just wondering if anyone had an opinion on wear Lion King takes place in Africa, I have alwase wondered this.

Thanks!

I always thought either Kenya or Tanzania.

Even though we can't be positively sure where in Africa, we can analyze the way Lion King's universe is set up and how their environment looks like. There are similar countries that have that same environment LK does. Just find pictures of African environments and maybe we can take an educated guess or inference to what African country the movie could take place. Just remember: the creators of TLK did go on many research trips in Africa in order to get an idea how the movie was going to be like with the different animals and settings.

The Lion King takes place near/on the Serengeti Plains in Tanzania/Kenya as can be seen by this screenshot of Mt. Kilimanjaro at the start of the Film.

^ I thought it looked somewhat familiar, well spotted. =)

In the audio commentary on the DVD releases of The Lion King, the filmmakers intended to put "Kenya, 2 years later" after we first see adult Simba at the ending of "Hakuna Matata" scene. So, it takes in Kenya according to the filmmakers.

Also, the during the early stages of production, some of the filmmakers went to Kenya on a study trip. They used what they got there for the Lion King.

It is undoubted that TLK is set in the African savanna, but this ecosystem happens both in Central -Eastern and in Southern Africa.
Well there are many reasons to think TLK occurs in Eastern Africa (Kenya and/or Tanzania):

1) As many of you said the crew of the movie travelled to Kenya on a study trip.

2) The phrase Hakuna Matata and most of the characters' names (incluiding Simba, Rafiki, Pumbaa, Shenzi and Sarabi) are in swahili, the national language of Kenya and Tanzania.

3) The Pridelands seem to be not very far from the rainforest where Timon and Pumbaa live, and rainforests don't occur in Southern Africa but in Central Africa.

4) The savanna we see on the movie looks in my opinion more like the one we can see in the pictures of the National Parks of Eastern Africa (such as Serengeti, Maasai Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo or Tarangire) than the ones of Southern Africa (such as Kruger, Hwange, Okavango, Etosha or Chobe -being all these very different one from the other).

5) The mountain with the snowed peak we see at the beginning of the movie is undoubtedly Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania (and visible from Kenya).

6) The rhinos depicted in the movie seem to be black rhinos, which are present in both East and Southern Africa. But Southern Africa (specially South Africa) has also white rhinos, and often in bigger numbers than their black counterparts, so if the movie would have been set in Southern Africa we would have seen more white rhino and we see none (however, the rhino depicted in the Broadway show is a white rhino).

7) The gazelles we see jumping at the beginning look more like Thomson's gazelles (that are endemic of East Africa) and not springboks or other species of gazelles that occur in Southern Africa.

8) The inmense number of wildebeest seem to be inspired by those who still roam the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. However, in past times there where also similar numbers of these creatures in Southern Africa, and this movie seems to be set at least in pre-colonial Africa.

9) Aside from the wildebeest, the most common species of antelope in the Pridelands seems to be the topi, which is much more abundant in Eastern than in Southern Africa, where it is called tsetseebe. Antelopes that abound in Southern Africa -but not that much in East Africa- such as the kudu and the oryx or gemsbok are not seen so often in the movies.

But there are still some things from the movie that relate it to Southern Africa:

1) Lebo M. was the South African musician that colaborated with Hans Zimmer's score to make it sound "African", and I don't need to say it was more than successful, I would even say that it was one of the reason's of the movies' success and quality. The chant "Nants ingonyama" at the beginning of "Circle of Life" and all the African sounding choirs that we hear in the soundtrack were created and directed by him, and they are all in Zulu or any other South African language.

2) Meerkats, the species to which Timon belongs, are endemic to the Kalahari desert that is shared between South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, they just don't exist besides that region.

3) A the beginning we see a flock of flamingos flying over a huge marshland. That could be the Okavango Delta in Botswana (although I know it is not the only marshland in Africa, but it's still the biggest).

4) We also see a flock of marabou stork flying over a waterfall, wich could be Victoria falls, in the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia (Southern Africa), which are the most famous waterfalls in Africa.

In any case I think the result is great.

Kenya! I did a research final on the country,