Arrakis - Cities and Features

Cities and Features

ARRAKEEN: first settlement on Arrakis; long-time seat of planetary government. — Dune, Terminology of the Imperium

Arrakis' capital and largest city historically is Arrakeen (/ærəˈkiːn/). Arrakeen housed an ostentatious palace, which had been "the government mansion in the days of the Old Empire"; prior to the arrival of the Atreides on Arrakis, the Emperor's right-hand man Count Fenring and his wife Margot had resided there. Leto I had chosen Arrakeen for his seat of government because it "was a smaller city, easier to sterilize and defend."

In Dune, Leto's concubine Lady Jessica has this first impression of the Great Hall:

Jessica stood in the center of the hall ... looking up and around at shadowed carvings, crannies and deeply recessed windows. This giant anachronism of a room reminded her of the Sisters' Hall at her Bene Gesserit school. But at the school the effect had been of warmth. Here, all was bleak stone. Some architect had reached far back into history for these buttressed walls and dark hangings, she thought. The arched ceiling stood two stories above her with great crossbeams she felt sure had been shipped here to Arrakis across space at monstrous cost. No planet of this system grew trees to make such beams — unless the beams were imitation wood. She thought not.

Arrakeen would go through multiple transformations over time; it first becomes an Imperial capital of staggering proportions under Paul Muad'Dib. It is later transformed into a festival city known as Onn, explicitly for the worship of the Tyrant Leto II. Finally, in the centuries after his death, it is known as Keen, a modern (though still impressive) city to house the Priesthood of Rakis.