The Magic of Oz

place

Munchkin Country

also Land of the Munchkins · Country of the Munchkins · The Munchkins · Munchkin Country of Oz · Munchkins

The blue country where Dorothy's house comes to earth, and where the road of yellow brick begins.

First named in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, ch. 2 — the earliest chapter using this name. A thing may appear before it is called this: Baum writes “the Winkies” long before anyone writes “Winkie Country”.

0 of 52 claims on this page are confirmed against the text.

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Counted from the chapters both are in, not merely named in — a trail to follow, not a claim about the story.

The sources disagree

  • They are the people who live in this land of the East where the Wicked Witch ruled. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, ch. 2
  • Oz itself is a huge oblong country divided into four parts, the North being the purple Gilliken country, the East the blue Munchkin country, the South the red lands of the Quadlings, and the West the pleasant yellow country of the Winkies. Kabumpo in Oz, ch. 4
  • There are four large countries in Oz; the yellow Winkie Land of the East, the purple Gillikin country of the North, the blue Munchkin country of the West and the red lands of the Quadlings in the South. The Gnome King of Oz, ch. 2

Baum puts the Munchkins in the east. Thompson agrees in Kabumpo in Oz (1922) and reverses herself five years later in The Gnome King of Oz (1927), where the Munchkins are western and the Winkies eastern. The compass of Oz is disputed not only between its two authors but within one of them.