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Carcosa is a fictional city in Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1886). The ancient and mysterious city is barely described and is viewed only in hindsight (after its destruction) by a character who once lived there.
American writer Robert W. Chambers borrowed the name "Carcosa" for several of his short stories featured in the 1895 book The King in Yellow, inspiring generations of authors to similarly use Carcosa in their own works.
In Chambers' stories, and within the apocryphal play titled The King in Yellow, which is mentioned several times within them, the city of Carcosa is a mysterious, ancient, and possibly cursed place. The most precise description of its location is the shores of Lake Hali, either on another planet, or in another universe.
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The name Hali originated in Ambrose Bierce's "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1886) in which Hali is the author of a quote which prefaces the story. The narrator of the story implies that the person named Hali is now dead (at least in the timeline of the story).
Several other nearly undescribed places are alluded to in Chambers' writing, among them Hastur, Yhtill, and Aldebaran. "Aldebaran" may refer to the star Aldebaran, likely as it is also associated with the mention of the Hyades star cluster, with which it shares space in the night sky. The Yellow Sign, described as a symbol, not of any human script, is supposed to originate from the same place as Carcosa.
One other name associated is "Demhe" and its "cloudy depths" − this has never been explained either by Chambers or any famous pastiche-writer and so it is not known what exactly "Demhe" is.
Marion Zimmer Bradley (and Diana L. Paxson since Bradley's death) also used the names "Hali" and "Lake of Hali" in her Darkover series series.
Joseph S. Pulver has written nearly 30 tales and poems that are based on and/or include Carcosa, The King in Yellow, or other elements from Robert W. Chambers. Pulver also edited an anthology A Season in Carcosa of new tales based upon The King in Yellow, released by Miskatonic River Press in 2012.
John Scott Tynes contributed to the mythology of Chambers' Carcosa in a series of novellas, "Broadalbin", "Ambrose", and "Sosostris", and essays in issue #1 of The Unspeakable Oath and in Delta Green.
In Paul Edwin Zimmer's Dark Border series, Carcosa is a city where humans mingle with their nearly immortal allies, the Hastur.
In Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Carcosa is connected with an ancient civilization in the Gobi Desert, destroyed when the Illuminati arrived on Earth via from the planet Vulcan.
In maps of the world of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, a city named Carcosa is labeled on the easternmost edge of the map along the coast of a large lake, near other magical cities such as Asshai. In The World of Ice and Fire, it is mentioned that a sorcerer lord lives there who claims to be the sixty-ninth Yellow Emperor, from a dynasty fallen for a thousand years.
In the satirical novel Kamus of Kadizhar: The Black Hole of Carcosa by John Shirley (St. Martin's Press, 1988), Carcosa is the name of a planet whose weird black hole physics figures in the story.
Swedish writer Anders Fager's "Miss Witt's Great Work of Art" features a Stockholm-based coterie known as "The Carcosa Foundation" that worships Hastur.
In David Drake's Lord of the Isles series, Carcosa is the name of the ancient capital of the old kingdom, which collapsed a thousand years before the events of the series.
In S. M. Stirling's Emberverse series, Carcosa is the name of a South Pacific city inhabited by evil people led by the Yellow Raja and the Pallid Mask.
In Lawrence Watt-Evans' The Lords of Dûs series, a character known as the Forgotten King, who dresses in yellow rags, reveals that he was exiled from Carcosa.
In writer Alan Moore's Neonomicon, drawn by artist Jacen Burrows, the character Johnny Carcosa is the key to a mystical Lovecraftian universe.
In Part 3 of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the barker of the traveling amusement park and carnival is named Carcosa, and the carnival in turn named, presumably, after him. Throughout the season of the show, it becomes apparent that Carny are all mythological beings of old, with Carcosa himself being the god Pan, his true form being that of a satyr, in the show understood to be the god of madness. The arc of the season revolves partially around the attempts of the carnival workers to Resurrection an older deity identified as Green Man. Themes of madness, death, and resurrection parallel the works of Robert W. Chambers et al.
The second song of the 2015 album Luminiferous by the American metal band High on Fire is named Carcosa.
Swedish rapper Yung Lean's third album Stranger features the closing track "Yellowman". Carcosa is mentioned in the song.
In 2016, DigiTech released a fuzz pedal called the Carcosa. The pedal featured two modes, named "Hali" and "Demhe".
In the video game Mass Effect 3, there is a planet named Carcosa.
In the video game Elite Dangerous, there is an inhabited star system named Carcosa.
In 2001, the Belgian black metal band Ancient Rites released the album Dim Carcosa. The title track's lyrics consist of excerpts from "Cassilda's Song".
In the early 2000s, a Mysterious Package Company experience called The King in Yellow was introduced, heavily inspired by story and title. Later, a sequel experience entitled Carcosa: Rise of the Cult was created, obviously connected to this shared universe and connected to the original The King in Yellow.
In 2017, Fantasy Flight Games released an expansion for titled "The Path to Carcosa" in which players investigate occurrences based on The King in Yellow.
Carcosa is mentioned in the song "Strange and Eternal" of the 2022 album Netherheaven by the American technical death metal band Revocation.
The 2025 exploration game Blackshard by French developers Redlock Studio borrows heavily from The King In Yellow in its concepts of a series of Signs; trapped chaos entities that seek to destroy the orderly world of the rigidly geometric Labyrinth, and open the door to a realm called Carcosa, bathed in yellow light.
In the Quebec-based geopolitical/live-action role-play game Bicolline, Carcosa is a kingdom in the west. It was established upon principles of freedom and is populated by pirates, nomads, escaped slaves, and religious exiles.
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