Babar's Kingdom - Celesteville

Celesteville

Celesteville is the capital of Babar's Kingdom. The city is ruled by King Babar and named after his wife, Queen Celeste.

Celesteville is described differently in several places in the series. In the original incarnation, Babar built Celesteville after he returned from France, and began westernizing his kingdom. He named his new city Celesteville, after the female elephant he had fallen in love with. The city lies in the middle of a jungle plain, surrounded by mountains, and is connected to a nearby sea or ocean, and is a port city.

The second incarnation depicts Babar growing up in an already westernized country, with a capital already named Celesteville. This creates a rather interesting continuity paradox.

Early on, like the rest of Babar's Kingdom, Celesteville is primarily populated by elephants. Minorities include monkeys, lions, crocodiles, hippos and at least one human. Though they are minority populations, they are treated as equals with the elephants, and are given the same rights, liberties, and respects that the elephants have, and are fully incorporated into the elephant society. However this has drastically changed later on, with the city having a vast number of other animals besides elephants, possibly due to the taming of wild jungle animals.

Known citizens of Celesteville include:

• Babar - King of Celesteville.
• Celeste - Babar's wife and cousin (in the books) and the queen of the realm.
• Arthur - Celeste's Brother, or in the books, Babar's 2nd cousin.
• Pom, Flora, Alexander and Isabelle - Babar's children. Pom, Flora and Alexander are triplets. Isabelle is the youngest child.
• Cornelius - an elephant, he is the Prime Minister of the Kingdom. He wears a military uniform and has the role of an entire cabinet, acting as a Minister of Defense and a Minister of Foreign Affairs.
• Pompadour - an elephant that dresses in 18th century attire, including wig. He usually acts as a Chamberlain to Babar.
• Troubadour - a companion to Pompadour, but he doesn't speak.
• Zephir - a monkey, and a personal friend of Babar.
• Madame (The Old Lady) - a lady that Babar befriended in France, and returned with him when he became king. She taught him many things, and was kind and caring, and in many ways became a surrogate mother of sorts to him. She is the only mentioned human who lives in Celesteville.
• Truffles - A palace cook.
• André - A Circus elephant who comes traveling through Celesteville along with a circus and later comes to live with Babar. Later on he joins the circus again.
• Marie - Flora's friend who ran off when Flora wanted to keep playing hopscotch instead of skipping.
• Samantha - Thought to be Celeste's friend, Celeste greets her right before her riding accident with Zephir.
• Felipe - Training to be the leading man in Mademoiselle Soretoza's ballet, but quit after being fed up with Soretoza's behavior.
• Ursula - Celeste's friend and an actress in "All Played Out".
• Badou - Babar's grandson and Pom's son.
• Munroe, Zawadi, Jake, Chiku - Badou's close friends. Chiku is also Zephir's daughter.
• Lulu - Babar's granddaughter, Badou's cousin.
• Periwinkinle - The town's doctor; Pom's wife and Badou's mother.
• Crocodylus - Ambassador of the Alligator and Crocodile kingdom.
• Dilash and Tersh - Crocodylus's nephews, brought over to make him seem more important.
• Gallop - A wise old turtle, who lives just outside of Celesteville.
• Miss Strich - The palace teacher, guide for tourists, and also organizes most of Celesteville's events.
• Prospero - A water buffalo and a bush pirate. Officially banned from the kingdom, but still sneaks about.

By Babar's decrees, a number of public institutions, schools, hospitals, parks, museums, libraries, an opera house, and other infrastructures have been built. The kingdom has a rail line, and Celesteville itself is connected to a large body of water (presumably a sea or ocean), making it a port city. Vehicle traffic is common in the kingdom, especially Celesteville, but most of the residents still seem to prefer to travel on foot or by bicycle, since many of the city's amenities seem to be fairly close to each other. The city is wired with electricity and phone service, which are commonplace, and there also appears to be a limited amount of radio and television services. Fresh water and sewage systems are also abundant. The kingdom has a policy of free press, and is serviced in large part by newspaper. Literacy and schooling is high, and it appears that nearly 100 percent of the population is educated. Crime, poverty, and the penal system are rarely featured in the series, and are presumed to be rare in Babar's Kingdom.

Babar and his family, as well as his advisors and some royal staff, live in a large palace in the center of the city. The palace is the kingdom's largest structure, contains several stories, dozens of rooms, and a very large garden complex. It also houses a home for madame, the first building completed in Celesteville