What is the name of the fictional Indian cantonment where Rudyard Kipling’s “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” is set?

Rudyard Kipling’s “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” is set in the fictional Segowlee cantonment.

A cantonment is a military station or settlement, a term used extensively in the context of British India. In Kipling’s story, the setting includes a bungalow, a garden, and the surrounding landscape where Rikki-Tikki-Tavi encounters the snakes Nag and Nagaina. The domestic garden provides the enclosed stage for the mongoose’s struggle to protect the human family.

Segowlee is fictional, so it should not be confused with real Indian places that have similar-sounding names. Kipling often combined recognizable colonial settings with invented locations and names, giving his stories a vivid but literary geography.

The story’s setting also helps explain why the garden contains both household residents and wild animals. Its mixture of domestic space and nearby nature is central to the tension between the family’s safety and the cobras’ territory.