Places of Changleska

The Circle for the Earth series unfolds across the Missouri River country of what is now central South Dakota, where landscape, memory, and sovereignty shape every choice. Explore the real places that inspired the story and the imagined places that grew from its alternate history.

Where the Story Begins
The story begins in central South Dakota, in the Missouri River country around Lower Brule and Crow Creek. In Circle for the Earth, a thirty-mile circle of land and people is transported from the present day to 1791. Familiar towns, roads, and landmarks become the starting point for an unfamiliar future.

The Circle 
At the center of the series is a fictional casino and resort and the surrounding thirty-mile circle of land and people carried back to 1791. The rivers, grasslands, roads, towns, and landmarks remain, but the systems that made modern life possible are suddenly gone. The people inside the Circle must decide what to preserve, what to change, and how to live in a place that has become both familiar and entirely new.

The Missouri River Country
The Missouri River and its wide bends shape both the geography and the choices of the series. The landscape offers water, shelter, travel routes, and food, but it also creates boundaries and distances. In Changleska, the land is never merely scenery. It is part of the story, shaping trade, safety, relationships, and the future of every community.

Real Places, Imagined Future
Circle for the Earth is set in a real part of South Dakota, but it is an alternate-history story. Some towns, roads, and landmarks are recognizable; other names, businesses, and communities are fictional or reimagined. The series is inspired by the region without attempting to make any real community a direct copy of the world on the page.

Explore the Maps
Follow the changing borders, settlements, and growth of Changleska through the series maps.