Mars/Barsoom

Mars, known as Barsoom to its inhabitants, serves as the main setting for the novel. With a desert-like red landscape, Mars is a world in decline. Shrinking oceans and an atmosphere both maintained by the Heliumites speak of hanging on rather than thriving. Mars is populated by various races of human beings, various tribes of green Martians, all with their own civilizations, cultures, and political systems; and by numerous creatures that are similar to, but different from animals on Earth. It is to Mars that John suddenly finds himself transported early in the novel.

Korad

The Dead City of Korad is a formerly magnificent city once populated by the Martians until Mars fell into decline. Its decaying ruins are now inhabited by the Tharkian tribe of Martians. Korad is a manifestation of what the Martian civilization used to be, and what it could be again if the...