Sunnydale High

Sunnydale
The "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign
Buffy the Vampire Slayer location
Created by	Joss Whedon
Type	Fictional city
Notable locations	Sunnydale High School The Bronze The Magic Box UC Sunnydale
Notable characters	Buffy Summers Rupert Giles Xander Harris Willow Rosenberg Cordelia Chase Angel Daniel "Oz" Osbourne Spike Riley Finn Anya Jenkins Dawn Summers Tara Maclay

Sunnydale is the fictional setting for the U.S. television drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Series creator Joss Whedon conceived the town as a representation of a generic California city, as well as a narrative parody of the all-too-serene towns typical in traditional horror movies.

Sunnydale is located on a "Hellmouth"; a portal "between this reality and the next", and convergence point of mystical energies.

Sunnydale's size and surroundings are implausible but justified given its origins — to sustain a human population for supernatural evils to prey upon. The town's founder spared no expense to attract a populace, and Sunnydale thus contains many elements of a large city — which the show's writers utilized fully for comic effect and narrative convenience. During the first three seasons, Sunnydale is shown to have 38,500 inhabitants, very few high schools, forty-three churches, a small private college, a zoo, a museum, and one modest main street. Even so, it has twelve gothic cemeteries. These cemeteries are so heavily used that services are sometimes held at night. Sunnydale is divided into five neighborhoods. The first is the entertainment district which contains the Bronze, Sunnydale's nightclub. The second is the alleys directly behind Bronze which contain the town's excess supply of pallets and cardboard. The high school makes the third neighborhood. The fourth neighborhood is filled in its entirety by the large graveyard, and lastly the suburban residential sprawl is the final neighborhood. The abundance of very nice homes is made possible by low property values caused by frequent murder.

In later seasons it is revealed that Sunnydale contains a campus of the University of California system, as well as a profitable magic supply shop. The town is also seen to include a large park containing a creek and a lake, and one of its cemeteries is shown to be adjacent to a lake. Sunnydale has a number of parks: Weatherly Park, Glebe Park, Radcliff Park and Nelson Park are just some of the examples.