Bikini Bottom (setting)

Bikini Bottom is the primary setting in the popular animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants created and designed by animator and former marine biologist Stephen Hillenburg. It is inhabited by several ocean life forms such as octopi, fish, whales, sharks, sea sponges (specifically SpongeBob), starfish, among others. Several landmarks include the local business The Krusty Krab, run by Mr. Krabs. People use "boatmobiles", a pun on automobiles, for transport, and homes in the town are aquatic-themed.

Several surrounding cities include Rock Bottom and Ukulele Bottom, and others are also mentioned in "Texas". The official newspaper is the Bikini Bottom Times, and the city has a maximum population of 758, although this has been mistaken when in one episode Mrs. Puff stated that SpongeBob will kill millions of innocent lives when driving on a humongous ship, stating that over a million residents and citizens live in Bikini Bottom. The city has been preceded by the Old Western-themed small town of Bikini Gulch.

The city is a satirical parody of a lifestyle epitomized by its culture and society and characters. It has cuisine like in reality, and several humans live in the town, including when a human was in a snorkeling suit playing the piano underwater.

Transportation
Citizens are transported by either aquatic-themed buses or go around in "boatmobiles" (a portmanteau of the words boat and automobile), aquatic-themed cars that have features from both. Although it is an underwater city, it still has normal airplanes to transport to other cities, and space shuttles are still used to go space (despite the fact that fish can't go to outer space). The hot rod genre of the automobile are also used for the "boatmobiles", meaning there are also sport cars versions of them.

Trains aren't used in the series, because it is underwater and the crew never thought that trains would make sense being in the show anyhow. The ruler, King Neptune, uses transportation via seahorse (a play of horses), and other life forms do not have the ability to transport on them.

Locations and inhabitants
There are several landmarks in the city. One of them includes the Krusty Krab, run by Mr. Eugene H. Krabs, employees Squidward Tentacles and SpongeBob, which competes against the Chum Bucket (run by Sheldon Plankton), despite being a run-down failure and never having any customers, due to its disgusting fast food and nature. Another restaurant includes Fancy!, which has a perfect nature because it is very fancy (hence its name), and is often visited, even though it is very expensive.

Other locations include Barg o' Mart, the only shopping area in the town, and Goo Lagoon, the dysfunctional beach under guard of Larry the Lobster, in which Scooter (a surfing fanatic) often surfs. It is renamed Muscle Beach for unknown reasons in the episode "MuscleBob BuffPants", maybe because Don the Whale and the others were working out with weights on the beach.

Several celebrity inhabitants include Perch Perkins, the news anchor for Bikini Bottom News, the source of events in the town. Squilliam Fancyson, Squidward's wealthy arch-rival, owns a band and has been included in several concerts, and has been heavily acknowledged everywhere in the town, much to Squidward's jealousy and annoyance.