What State Is Arkham In?

Massachusetts. Arkham stands on the North Shore, in Essex County, on the Miskatonic River, near the coast. It is the seat of Miskatonic University and the town in which this office is kept.

At a glance

• State: Massachusetts.
• Region: the North Shore, north of Boston, in the Essex County seaport belt.
• River: the Miskatonic, which runs inland toward the hill country and appears on no public survey.
• Stamp: SUPPRESSED, so Arkham will not be found on a modern road atlas. The usual reconciliation is Salem.

Its neighbours

Kingsport, the old harbour town, lies a couple of miles to the east on the same shore. Innsmouth lies about sixteen miles up the coast to the north, and the Archive pins it near Newburyport. Dunwich lies far inland: the Field Survey's conjectured zone is some seventy miles to the west, up the Miskatonic valley and off the Aylesbury pike. The blasted heath of The Colour Out of Space lies in the hills west of the town, about eight miles out.

One of the accounts keeps the route plain: the witness who left Innsmouth by the old railway line passed through Rowley and Ipswich before he reached Arkham. That is the coast road the Archive's chart follows too.

For a point on a map, and the pins for each Arkham locality, use the chart below. For a fuller answer to why Arkham will not appear in an atlas, see the Dispatch on whether it is a genuine place.