The Sherlock Holmes stories primarily take place in London.
London is the main setting for Holmes's investigations, especially the fictional rooms at 221B Baker Street in Marylebone. From there, Holmes and Watson travel through the capital to interview witnesses, inspect crime scenes, and consult Scotland Yard. The city's crowded streets, railways, fog, clubs, laboratories, and wealthy neighborhoods give Doyle a varied landscape for detective fiction.
Holmes's London is closely tied to the Victorian and Edwardian periods. The original stories span the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when London was a rapidly expanding metropolis shaped by industrialization, social inequality, new communications, and modern policing.
London is not the setting of every case. Holmes and Watson sometimes travel elsewhere in Britain, and stories such as “The Final Problem” move to continental Europe. Switzerland, for example, is the location of the Reichenbach Falls confrontation with Moriarty. Nevertheless, London—particularly Baker Street—remains the series' unmistakable home base.