What state is "South Park" set in?

The crude construction paper animation and fourth-grade adventures of Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman have entertained audiences since 1997. Between Kenny's daily deaths and regular monster attacks, these elementary schoolers somehow maintain a surprisingly normal small-town life. What state is the quirky town of "South Park" located?

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The answer is: Colorado

"South Park" takes place in Park County, Colorado, not far from where co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone grew up. The fictional town is set in a high-altitude grassland valley surrounded by mountains in central Colorado called... the South Park Basin. Though the real South Park never had to deal with Mecha-Streisand or ManBearPig attacks.

Parker and Stone met while attending the University of Colorado at Boulder, and they filled their show with inside jokes and references only true Coloradans recognize. For example, both of them loved Casa Bonita, the Mexican restaurant in Denver featuring cliff divers and Black Bart's Cave. Parker and Stone actually bought the restaurant back in 2021 to save it from bankruptcy.

The show's animation style, which started with construction paper cutouts, was inspired by the construction paper film "American History" Parker had made while at CU Boulder. While the duo would go on to make a few projects using the same technique, only the pilot episode uses actual construction paper, and everything after is faked.

The mountain town setting allows for perfectly Colorado storylines, from the kids' trips to Aspen for skiing to regular appearances by a marijuana-fueled towel named Towelie. And sure, the town deals with demon attacks, and I wouldn't recommend the chili, but at its heart, it's just another weird little mountain town.