Besides saying “Springfield” does anyone have any clue what state the simpsons live. Things we need to keep in mind.
)Isn’t it obvious, that they live in no place that can be pinned down? To add to the list of geographic feature, they’ve also got the fearsome Mount Springfield on their doorstep.
This has become a recurring in-joke between simpsons fans on the internet and writers lately. General consensus is that the writers have deliberately thrown in so many conflicting ‘clues’ that there’s no location that meets even a conclusive majority of them.
It’s anytown, USA. Can’t be pinned down any further than that.
Here’s a discussion of this particular wild goose chase. As already noted, there is no real U.S. state that has all the observed properties.
Apparently “North Tacoma” is one possible, theoretical name for the fictional state containing Springfield, though just the opinion of one of the directors. The name hasn’t actually been used in an episode.
Which is “the same shape as Texas and three times as big.” That alone is enough to disqualify every place on Earth.
Northern Kentucky.
We can assume they don’t live in those states that they’ve specifically traveled to. So has anyone made a list of all them? My guess is they’ve visited all the real states at one point or another.
I remember an interview with Groening where he said that Springfield isn’t a particular place but is just referred to as “Springfield, USA”. Sorry I can’t provide a link, the interview is over 4 four years old.
You can go further and assume that they don’t live in any real state whatsoever, since every state is ruled out by one episode or another.
The first link in my post above collects all the clues together in one handy place: travel episodes and all. If it’s not a totally exhaustive list, I don’t know what would be.
That said, I can’t remember any episode in which one of the characters visited, say, North Dakota. (It is possible that North Dakota is itself fictional anyway.)
I think they live in Nolongerfunnyorrelevantville.
Come on! Everybody knows that they live in Springfield…Oh, Hi Marge!
We can at least narrow it down to one of the states forming the “Five Corners”.
“Haven’t we stood in five states long enough?”
There was a commercial on Fox a couple of months back that shocked me. I know it’s a running joke that they never say the state name, but Fox was playing a commercial for reruns of King of the Hill and The Simpsons. The premise of the commercials was “the bad-boys” of Fox dinner-time reruns, and they showed Bobby Hill and Bart Simpson in “wanted”-type posters. So, on Bobby Hill’s poster it said “Hometown: Arlen, TX” and on Bart’s it said “Hometown: Springfield, IL”. Now, I know this isn’t official and I’m sure it’s not Groening-approved, but I still thought it was weird that Fox’s ad department would even make a commmercial like that. They’ve obviously never watched the Simpsons.
Well… I know that the Simpsons aren’t supposed to be from any specific state, but I do have some interesting observations to add.
One of the opening sequences (where they are all sitting on the couch) shows the camera focused on the couch and it pans back to a view of the earth. While it is panning you can see that it clearly comes from the Michigan area. I replayed it in slow-mo many times just to make sure on that one.
In the episode where Bart creates the cartoon Angry Dad, the school is talked to by the creator of a popular cartoon. During the Q & A section of the speech a kid asks where DangerDog lives. The creator lets out a giant sigh and says Michigan.
Those two things combined lead me to believe that they come from Michigan. I don’t care if it is a running joke… in my mind they will be from Michigan. 
This is the same answer my husband gives. We both came to that conclusion a while back, though I have completely forgotten how. My husband mentioned it again just now - I think we pieced it together using that Hank Scorpio episode, and the sugar episode (Homer mentions “south of the border” is Tennessee), along with several others I can’t remember right now.
Certainly, though, they pull bits and pieces from all over the US. Even though it’s a fictional town, if I had to make a guess at it being in a real state, I’d say northern Kentucky.
Ooooh, ooooh, another one: Kent Brockman once says on the air (when the Simpson house was on fire?) that he was reporting from “America’s Heartland”.
Northern Kentucky is from the “behind the laughter” episode. From The Simpson’s Archive:
I’ve never heard the “Southern Missouri” variant.
In the episode when they’re expelled from Florida after almost killing the beloved corcodile, they all gather around a US map at the end of the episode and cross out Florida. Apparently, they’re no longer welcome in any states other than Arizona and North Dakota.
Then, Bart says, “Arizona smells funny!” and they put an x through that also. All that’s left is ND. Bart says, “I’ve always WANTED to see Mount Rushmore!”
Lisa says, “Thats south Dakota,” and they all groan.
So apparently, they’re no welcome anywhere other than ND and AZ, AZ is judged to smell funny and they decide not to travel there (so they don’t live in AZ) and ND is treated as a novelty until they realize that Rushmore isn’t there. This implies that they’re not from any state. (Not just an indeteminate state, but no state.)
Huh!
You mention “dinner-time reruns,” so it appears that this commercial was produced by your local Fox affiliate for their syndicated reruns of these two shows, and not a network-produced ad for the Sunday showings.
Springfield, Oh hiya Maude!