Places in Harry Potter - Diagon Alley

Diagon Alley is a fictional high street located in London. It is accessible to the wizarding world, to which it is something of an economic hub, but hidden from Muggles (non-magical people). However, Muggles are allowed access to it if they need to accompany their Muggle-born magical children. If a wizard or witch needs something, chances are that it can be found in Diagon Alley.

One entrance to Diagon Alley can be reached on foot by passing through The Leaky Cauldron (a wizarding pub/inn). The inn, which is invisible to Muggles, lies in between a bookshop and a music shop. To enter Diagon Alley, one must go through The Leaky Cauldron to a rear courtyard and tap a brick in the wall, found by counting three up and two across, three times. In the film, the tapping of 5 bricks around the hole in the wall opens the doorway to Diagon Alley. Given the busy nature of the area, travelling to and from Diagon Alley is likely typically done by more magical means such as Apparition or by using the Floo Network, which are both ways of wizarding transport. It contains Gringotts Bank which is run by goblins, an ice-cream parlour, pet shops, book shops, Ollivander's wand shop, magical clothing shops, broom shops, apothecaries and many others.

The DVD of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets includes a video "guided tour" of Diagon Alley, apparently shot on the original film sets. In the first film, the Leaky Cauldron's entrance was filmed in Bull's Head Passage, near Leadenhall Market. In the sixth film, it was inserted into the actual Charing Cross Road, between a book store and a surveyors' storefront, while Diagon Alley's actual location was revealed to be in an alley called Cecil Court located near Leicester Square, which dates back to 1627.

The name Diagon Alley is a near homophone of the word "diagonally", which is used as a plot device when Harry mispronounces the phrase near the beginning of the Chamber of Secrets film.