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Neverland is the fictional island and dream world featured in the play Peter Pan by Scottish writer J. M. Barrie and subsequent novel Peter and Wendy.^[1] While sojourning in Neverland, people may cease to age; therefore, Neverland is often seen as a metaphor for eternal childhood (and childishness), immortality, and escapism. In the earliest drafts of Barrie's play, the island was called Peter's Never Never Never Land, a name possibly influenced by the contemporary term for outback Australia^[2]. When the play was performed, the island was referred to as the Never Never Land. In the published play, it was shortened to the Never Land. In the novel, it was spelled as one word: the Neverland.

Peter led Wendy Darling and her brothers to Neverland by flying "second to the right, and straight on till morning," though it is stated in the novel that Peter made up these directions on the spot for a voyage that he made intuitively. In the 1953 Disney film, Peter Pan, the word "star" is added to the directions Peter speaks, "second star to the right, and straight on till morning."

Contents 1 Areas 1.1 The Neverwood 1.2 The Home Underground 1.3 Fort Pan 1.4 The Mermaids' Lagoon 1.5 Neverpeak Mountain 1.6 Grief Reef and the Maze of Regrets 1.7 Various Places 2 The Neverland World 2.1 Creation 2.2 The Fabric 2.3 The Journey 2.4 Treasure 2.5 Time 2.6 Imagination 2.7 Surrounding Islands 2.8 Fairies in Neverland 3 Uses of the word "neverland" in popular culture 4 References

This is probably the most famous location in Peter Pan. The Home Underground is settled in the Neverwood, as is the Wendy House. Most of the adventures take place in the Neverwood.

This is where Peter and his Lost Boys reside. There are many entrances into the underground home. Hollowed-out trees are made to fit every Lost Boy in Peter's ranks, and there is a small Nevertree in the middle of the large room that grows every day. Peter and the children use it as a table to eat on, then they cut it when it has grown too large. In Peter Pan in Scarlet, Peter lets the Nevertree grow too large, and it grows out of the roof. It then picks up the Wendy House and lifts it into the air.

Peter mentions, in Peter Pan in Scarlet, that he was going to build a new home after his quest with the Darling children. This new home would be called Fort Pan, and he claimed that only Wendy would be allowed into it.

The mermaids lounge around in the Mermaid Lagoon without a care in the world. This is also the location of Marooner's Rock. It is not safe for mortals to visit Mermaid Lagoon at night. This is the most dangerous place in Neverland.

This is the huge mountain that is right in the middle of Neverland. According to Peter Pan in Scarlet, when a child is on top of Neverpeak Mountain, he or she can see over anyone and anything and can see beyond belief.

In Peter Pan in Scarlet, there exists a maze where all the mothers of the Lost Boys go to find their boys. This was thought to be a maze of witches before the League of Pan ran into Mr. Smee.

There are many places not really explained in any canon Peter Pan story. These include: the Thirsty Desert, the Nevva River, the Never City, the Elephant's Graveyard, Parcel Pass, the Groves of Academe, Slightly Gulch, and many more.

According to Peter Pan in Scarlet, the island was pushed up from the ground by imagination. And in Peter Pan, it's shown that whatever a child dreams and wishes for will come true in Neverland. But according to Peter and the Starcatchers, the island is a normal island; it was named by Peter in memory of the Neverland, a boat he was sent on along with his gang of St. Norbert's boys.

There is a Fabric that exists between the Neverland world and ours. It is broken in Peter Pan in Scarlet by grown-up mess. This causes the dreams in Neverland to leak out. Then, the Darling children begin having dreams of Neverland. Only children are let past the fabric of Neverland. In Peter Pan, it shows that no one could go to Neverland without the island looking for them.

The journey to Neverland is portrayed in many ways. In the James Barrie novel, the island was found by the children when they flew onward for days. They wouldn't have found it if it weren't for the island moving toward them. In Peter Pan in Scarlet, they get to the Neverland world by flying on a road called the High Way. In many movie adaptions, they find the world by flying into a star.

In Peter Pan in Scarlet, it says that treasure in Neverland is whatever you wish it to be. Some people had wished for food, fairydust, firewood and other things.

In the world of Neverland, they say that time is told by either the Crocodile's clock or the suns and moons. It is mentioned in the novel Peter Pan that there are many more suns and moons there than in our world. In Peter Pan in Scarlet, it says that time froze to the children as soon as they got into Neverland.

Imagination seems to have great dominion over Neverland. In the novel Peter Pan, it says that a map of a child's mind would resemble a map of Neverland. It also shows that what you wish for ends up in Neverland. And J.M. Barrie also says that the island has no boundaries at all, probably metaphorically stating that a child's imagination has no boundaries either. The belief in fairies and Neverland seems to regenerate Peter and the fairies.

According to Peter Pan in Scarlet, Neverland resides in a sea known as the Sea of One Thousand Islands. In the book, Peter explores some of this sea, passing by islands of various sizes. The most amazing thing encountered on this adventure is Lodestone Rock: a magnetic rock that destroys the Jolly Peter and the SS Starkey along with it.

In the novel Peter and Wendy, the version of James Barrie's famous Peter Pan stories that was published in 1911, there are fairies on Neverland. In the part of the story where Peter Pan and the lost boys built a house for Wendy on Neverland, Peter Pan stays up late that night to guard her from the pirates, but then the story says: "After a time he fell asleep, and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from an orgy. Any of the other boys obstructing the fairy path at night they would have mischiefed, but they just tweaked Peter's nose and passed on." ^[3]

According to various Merriam-Webster dictionaries, the word "neverland" is defined as "an ideal or imaginary place". Often these neverlands are created in dreams of any human - child, teenager, or adult.

The in-between place inhabited by various mystical creatures in the books series The Dresden Files is referred to as the "Nevernever".

In the song Enter Sandman by Metallica, Never Never Land is referred to as the place where the Sandman lives. Never Never Land is also referenced at the end of the song King Nothing.

Neverland is also the name of a comic book published by an autonomous cartunist in Brazil. In the story, the main characters are all children, fighting for their lives in a post 3rd World War period around the year of 2050.

Neverland Ranch is the name of Michael Jackson's ranch in Santa Barbara, where he had a private amusement park, and which was the site of much controversy before he moved away in 2005. He named the ranch after Neverland from the Peter Pan stories.

In the video games Kingdom Hearts, and the sequel, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, inspired by Disney animationed films, "Neverland" (as seen in the film Peter Pan) appears as a world. Though none of the plot takes place on the island itself, some game play is set on Captain Hook's ship,The Jolly Roger, an element of the Neverland setting.