The fictional city in China Miéville’s “Perdido Street Station” is New Crobuzon.
The novel is set primarily in New Crobuzon, a powerful city-state in Miéville’s invented world of Bas-Lag. It is an enormous, polluted industrial metropolis where humans and several non-human species live alongside steam technology, airships, primitive constructs, and thaumaturgy—a practical form of magic.
New Crobuzon is more than a backdrop: its class divisions, authoritarian government, exploitation, and segregated districts shape the plot and the characters’ choices. The city is ruled by Mayor Bentham Rudgutter and the Fat Sun Party, with the militia enforcing state power.
A common mix-up is confusing New Crobuzon with Bas-Lag. Bas-Lag is the wider world or setting, while New Crobuzon is the specific city. Armada, another important location in Miéville’s Bas-Lag fiction, is a floating city featured in “The Scar,” not the primary city of “Perdido Street Station”.