I just noticed that in one Barks story, at least in the German translation, it's mentioned that a planned new city district, "East Duckburg" is going to have two million inhabitants after Scrooge's building project will be finished. Though the Junior Woodchucks have managed to stop that expansion and burn the plans, it gives a hint on Duckburg's actual size since a city won't plan out a new district for two million people if it isn't very large already. It pushes speculations for Barksian Duckburg far into the range of millions.
I just noticed that in one Barks story, at least in the German translation, it's mentioned that a planned new city district, "East Duckburg" is going to have two million inhabitants after Scrooge's building project will be finished. Though the Junior Woodchucks have managed to stop that expansion and burn the plans, it gives a hint on Duckburg's actual size since a city won't plan out a new district for two million people if it isn't very large already. It pushes speculations for Barksian Duckburg far into the range of millions.
Ah, "Peril of the Black Forest"--which, as it happens, just came out in its Jippes-redrawn version for the first time in the USA in Uncle Scrooge *yesterday*! Was the timing of your comment truly a coincidence? If so, it's quite an impressive one! And yes, in the English original, Scrooge's planned East Duckburg is going to have two million citizens.
It's a coincidence, since I don't collect foreign-language Disney comics.
Well, as I said, it pushes the actual population of Duckburg quite high because otherwise the city won't plan a district for two million citizens. It already has to be a city of several (at least two or three) million people.
if anything (and in all stories that I read less one, Duckburg and Mouseton were both "Patopólis"), Mouseton seems bigger than Duckburg - Mickey stories usually seems to occur in an urban environment, with big buildings, a big density, etc. Ducks stories, in contrast, when don't involve a travel to a distant country, seems to have a more "suburban" setting (like if Duckburg was LA and Mouseton NY) - or perhaps is simply a question of the difference in story styles (crime mystery in Mickey versus domestic life or foreign adventures in the Ducks - in the first type, there is more reason to put the action in the center of the town).
if anything (and in all stories that I read less one, Duckburg and Mouseton were both "Patopólis"), Mouseton seems bigger than Duckburg - Mickey stories usually seems to occur in an urban environment, with big buildings, a big density, etc. Ducks stories, in contrast, when don't involve a travel to a distant country, seems to have a more "suburban" setting (like if Duckburg was LA and Mouseton NY) - or perhaps is simply a question of the difference in story styles (crime mystery in Mickey versus domestic life or foreign adventures in the Ducks - in the first type, there is more reason to put the action in the center of the town).
I agree that Mouseton has a distinct Northeastern feel to it. That, plus numerous references to Mickey being "from the East" in Gottfredson's work, is why I disagree with the idea of Mouseton being in Calisota.
I would say L.A. and NYC are by far larger than Duckburg and Mouseton. In my headcanon, those are places of around 1 million citizens. I would compare Duckburg to Hamburg or Vienna and Mouseton to Cologne or Stuttgart in my place (though we don't even have Mouseton).
if anything (and in all stories that I read less one, Duckburg and Mouseton were both "Patopólis"), Mouseton seems bigger than Duckburg - Mickey stories usually seems to occur in an urban environment, with big buildings, a big density, etc. Ducks stories, in contrast, when don't involve a travel to a distant country, seems to have a more "suburban" setting (like if Duckburg was LA and Mouseton NY) - or perhaps is simply a question of the difference in story styles (crime mystery in Mickey versus domestic life or foreign adventures in the Ducks - in the first type, there is more reason to put the action in the center of the town).
I agree that Mouseton has a distinct Northeastern feel to it. That, plus numerous references to Mickey being "from the East" in Gottfredson's work, is why I disagree with the idea of Mouseton being in Calisota.
Having spent a lot of time in both southern California (where I grew up) and the Northeast (where I've lived for the past decade), I'd agree that 1930s Mouseton often seems to have a New England feeling about it, right down to certain characters' accents (Eli Squinch) and the look of its waterfront.
But I'd also argue that from the 1940s on, Mouseton looks more Pacific Coast to me—to a point where I'm completely content with placing it in Calisota, as Scarpa did from the late 1950s on. Continuities evolve.
And I do like occasional Mickey/Ducks crossover stories, which are facilitated by keeping the cities close to each other.
In Dave Rawson's story "Vacation Brake" (which I re-read every year in mid-October, aka Color Time), Mickey and Minnie are on vacation during foliage season in what is pretty clearly meant to be Vermont (anyway, it's not the West Coast!). They have driven there in Mickey's car, #113. I take that as evidence for the theory that Mouseton is in the Northeast, at least for purposes of that story.
In Terry LaBan's "The Great White Whale," Donald and the boys are on vacation on Cape Cod...but there is no indication that they have *driven* there from home.
Even the names of the police agents (O'Hara, Casey) seem a bit Northeastern, no?
You mean you'd expect Irish, Yiddish, Italian, Puerto Rican, Portuguese, Lebanese, and French Canadian names in The Northeast (New England and New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia), and expect English, Polish, German, Swedish, Norwegian and Iraqi names in The Midwest. and Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Armenian, Russian, Ethiopian, Nigerian, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Palestinian, and Polynesian names on The West Coast?
I just found the only (somehow?) semi-official number of 1,316,000 that apparently the Italian Topolino magazine uses. It is very similiar to the one of 1,320,001 that was already discussed in this thread!
In my opinion it is the best figure ("most official", makes the most sense and fits best what we usually see in-story). So, in terms of population Duckburg is a big but not outstanding city (neither a town like in some Northern European stories nor a metropolis like Rota portrays it) and akin to Hamburg and Munich in my country or Philadelphia and San Francisco in the US.