Fallout 1 and Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout series both feature, in some capacity, a city called Shady Sands. It becomes an even more significant location in the second Fallout game, but where is Fallout’s Shady Sands in real life? Here’s the answer.
Where Is Fallout’s Shady Sands in Real Life?
Fallout’s Shady Sands is somewhere in Nevada, though its actual position differs between games. Unlike some of the Fallout franchise’s locations, it’s a settlement built from scratch rather than in the shell of some existing structure, as was the case with Fallout 4’s Diamond City.
So we can’t point at a particular location and say exactly where it was. Shady Sands is not a real town, nor has it ever been. However, using the Fallout 1 and 2 world maps (courtesy of the Fallout Wiki), we can get a rough idea of where it is in the games and show.
Fallout 1 takes place on the West Coast of North America, in the California/Nevada areas, and if you compare the game’s map to the Google Maps of that area, they more or less match up. It helps that Hubtown, one of Fallout 1’s locations, is basically Barstow, a real-life town.
With that, we can say that Shady Sands is northwest of Las Vegas, well into the less populated areas of Nevada. However, Fallout 2 shows the town – now simply called NCR – as a little further south. Various Reddit users have tried to pinpoint it more accurately, but there’s been no solid consensus.
The above map shows where Sandy Shands was before it was annihilated by.. well, I won’t spoil that.
However, the Fallout show does show the ruins of a vast city, so either Shady Sands really shot up in the 50+ years between the show and the second game, or the show’s canon is a little off. Reddit users have suggested that the show actually moves it closer to Los Angeles. It would, at least, make sense for the HQ of the New California Republic to be in California.
So the answer to where Fallout’s Shady Sands is in real life is that it’s in Nevada in the games, but the show may have shifted it closer to Los Angeles.
