The location of the Phantom's world originally in Indonesia before Africa and India

Where is Bangalla (Bengali)

The majority of phans accept that the Phantom's world and home in the Skull Cave in the jungles of Bangalla is off the east coast of Africa. Many phans will also know that before the Phantom 'moved' to Africa, his world was located in India. Even now we see the remnants of the Indian influence with tigers, the Singh Pirates being named after a common Indian name, and the name of Bangalla / Bengali being very similar to the location off the coast of India's east coast.

However, do phans know that even before the Indian influence, the first Phantom story had the Phantom being homed further south in the islands of Indonesia?

Below are pages from the first and second Phantom stories, "The Singh Brotherhood" and "The Sky Band" by Lee Falk and Ray Moore, which give us clues to the original location of the Phantom's world and when it changed from Indonesia to India.

The Phantom's home originally located in Indonesia

In this first example, the Phantom talks to Prince Achmed about the Sunda Trough. This is an actual location and has been covered before and is a place this author has actually sailed over. A trough (or trench) is a geology term for a long, narrow depression on the seafloor. The Sunda Trench is off the coast of Java which is the main island of the country Indonesia.

In the "Singh Brotherhood" story, Diana is kidnapped and taken to the underwater kingdom of the Singh Pirates, a place called Krakatan. In real life, there is a small group of volcanic islands called Krakotoa located in the Sunda Strait, between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia.

The original island was mostly destroyed during a volcano eruption in 1883, but a new active volcanic island called Anak Krakatoa ("Child of Krakatoa") later emerged in the same caldera. Maybe the underwater kingdom came from the mostly destroyed island that submerged. If this sounds familiar, it is very similar to the legend of Atlantis.

Next up is the island of Luntok that includes the home of the Phantom. I could not find an island or place in or around Indonesia that currently or in the past has the name of Luntok. The closest is an island called Lombok, but that is a 1,000 km trip with the whole island of Java between the two islands.

Other possible locations on the west side of Java that sound somewhat familiar or begin with the letter L are Legundi Island, which is only 40 km away from the Krakatoa archipelago. Another option could be Lampung, which is a province of modern-day Indonesia on the southern tip of the island of Sumatra and is only 30-50 km from the Krakatoa archipelago. These two locations would make sense with the Phantom swimming to shore injured after blowing up the underwater kingdom.

This all makes sense with the Phantom patrolling the area of Sumatra, which is another island of Indonesia and where Professor James Dodd first encountered the Phantom back in 1866.

In "The Sky Band" (the second Phantom story), the India Clipper seaplane leaves from the Batavia airport on its way north - likely to India. Interestingly, Batavia was the historical name for the city of Jakarta, the current capital of Indonesia. Batavia was officially renamed Jakarta on August 8, 1942, after the Japanese occupation forces seized control of the Dutch East Indies during World War II.

When does the location of the Phantom's world change to India?

About halfway through the Sky Band story is where the focus of the Phantom's world migrates from Indonesia to India.

Diana lands at the outskirts of Calcutta (now Kolkata) on the east coast of India and is met by Captain Melville Horton who was before located on the island of Luntok. The other two locations mentioned are Bassein and Rangoon which are cities in modern-day Myanmar (formerly called Burma and gained independence from the Crown Colony in 1948). Bassein (now called Pathein) is located 190 km west of Rangoon, which is now called Yangon. The open water between Bassein and Calcutta is the Bay of Bengal.

Hope you enjoyed this deep dive into Phantom lore and learned something new about the location of the Phantom's world in the first year of his creation.

When did the Phantom's world move to Africa?

The move from India to Africa happened when Sy Barry took over the role, which not only saw the location migrate to Africa but also a modernisation of the character, which included Bangalla becoming an independent democratic country with native Black leaders, Colonel Worubu taking over the Jungle Patrol, and Lamanda Luaga becoming the first president of Bangalla. More about this in a possible future article.

The first example is from "The Mystery of the Island of Dogs" which is the 86th Phantom daily story published in 1963. The story was written by Lee Falk and drawn by Sy Barry. In this story, the Phantom only hints this missile base could dominate and control Africa as the main location and parts of Asia as a secondary location.

With "The Reef" is the 88th Phantom daily story published in 1964 written by Lee Falk and drawn by Sy Barry has the letter going from Diana to the Phantom addressed to Africa. This is the first time in a definite way we see the Phantom's location in Africa.