This is Ralswiek Castle on the German island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. As you know, I think “Tangled” probably takes place on the Baltic Sea coast, and I thought this castle had some of the same feel of the Corona castle, particularly from the roof down. It’s French Renaissance style, and I see the Corona castle as a French Renaissance-style castle topped with Eastern European-style onion domes. I also got a kick out the sunburst sundial on the side and the forested grounds – very Corona-esque.

These maps show the tendency of Hanseatic cities on the Baltic Sea in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to build on islands. The fact that the Corona village is on an island (and that the flag of Corona has a ship on it) adds further credence to the idea that a real-world island-village might have been a small Hanseatic port.

The photos are from Stralsund, Germany, a Baltic Sea port on an island that gives a sense of what a real-world island-village of Corona might have looked like. The art is concept art from the excellent companion book, “The Art of Tangled.”

You base whatever you’ve got in reality. We were thinking of Central Europe - what trees grow there? We researched what the major types of forests were in Eastern Germany, Poland, and Hungary. We kept to oak, hornbeam, and beech because of the shapes. We wanted soft lines.   -DOUG ROGERS, DESIGNER

The photos are of a beech forest I recently visited on Rügen, a German island in the Baltic Sea.

Here is a CG rendering of the castle of Wolgast, which is one of the most likely real-world settings for “Tangled” and the Kingdom of Corona. 

More detail of the Wolgast castle, or Schloß, if you are Teutonically inclined.

Admit it, there’s a hint of Corona here.

This, for my money, is the closest thing I could find to a real-world Corona island village and castle. Wolgast (now in Germany, then a ducal seat of Pomerania) is in the right part of Europe, it’s the right size, the right feel, and even had a duke in a castle. And that castle is on an island. This is a 1652 depiction.

Another 1652 depiction of Wolgast. As ever in these historical images, there is an army on the attack. What’s the point of having a town if it can’t be ransacked, I guess?