There exist a variety of speculative proposals that real-world events could have inspiredPlato's fictional story ofAtlantis, told in theTimaeus andCritias. While Plato's story was not part of theGreek mythic tradition and his dialogues use it solely as anallegory about hubris, speculation about real natural disasters that could have served as inspiration have been published in popular accounts and in a few academic contexts. Additionally, many works ofpseudohistory andpseudoarchaeology treat the story as fact, offering reinterpretations that tie tonational mysticism or legends ofancient aliens. While Plato's story explicitly locates Atlantis in theAtlantic Ocean beyond thePillars of Hercules, other proposed locations for Atlantis includeHelike,Thera,Troy, and theNorth Pole.

Most proposals for the location of Atlantis center on the Mediterranean, influenced largely by the geographical location ofEgypt from which thestory has literary antecedents.

The story of Atlantis has been argued since the early twentieth century to have preserved a cultural memory of theThera eruption, which destroyed the town ofAkrotiri and affected some Minoan settlements onCrete.^[2]

The classicist Robert L. Scranton argued in an article published inArchaeology that Atlantis was the "Copaic drainage complex and its civilization" inLake Copais, Boeotia.^[3] Modern archaeological discoveries have revealed aMycenaean-era drainage complex and subterranean channels in the lake.

An American architect, Robert Sarmast, claims that Atlantis lies at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean within the Cyprus Basin.^[4] In his book and on his web site, he argues that images prepared from sonar data of the sea bottom of the Cyprus Basin southeast ofCyprus show features resembling man-made structures on it at depths of 1,500 meters. He interprets these features as being artificial structures that are part of the lost city of Atlantis as described byPlato. According to his ideas, several characteristics of Cyprus, including the presence ofcopper and extinctCyprus dwarf elephants and local place names and festivals (Kataklysmos), support his identification of Cyprus as once being part of Atlantis. As with many other proposals concerning the location of Atlantis, Sarmast speculates that its destruction by catastrophic flooding is reflected in the story of Noah's Flood inGenesis.

In part, Sarmast^[4] bases his claim that Atlantis can be found offshore of Cyprus beneath 0.9 miles (1.4 km) of water on an abundance of evidence that the Mediterranean Sea dried up during theMessinian Salinity Crisis when its level dropped by 2 to 3 miles (3.2 to 4.8 km) below the level of the Atlantic Ocean as the result of tectonic uplift blocking the inflow of water through the Strait ofGibraltar.^[5] Separated from the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea either partly or completely dried up as the result of evaporation. As a result, its formerly submerged bottom turned into a desert with large saline and brackish lakes. This whole area was flooded when a ridge collapsed allowing the catastrophic flooding through the Straits of Gibraltar. However, Sarmast disagrees with mainstream geologists, oceanographers, and paleontologists^[6][7] in arguing that the closing of the Straits of Gibraltar; thedesiccation and subaerial exposure of the floor of the Mediterranean Sea; and its catastrophic flooding has occurred "forty times or more times in its long and turbulent existence" and that "the age of each of these events is unknown."^[8] In the same interview, he also contradicts what mainstream geologists, oceanographers, and paleontologists argue^[6][7] in claiming that "Scientists know that roughly 18,000 years ago, there was not just one Mediterranean Sea, but three." However, he does not specify who these scientists are; nor does he cite peer-reviewed scientific literature that supports this claim.

Marine and other geologists,^[5][9] who have also studied the bottom of the Cyprus basin, and professional archaeologists completely disagree with his interpretations.^[10] Investigations by Dr. C. Hübscher of Geophysical Institute ofUniversity of Hamburg and others of the salt tectonics and mud volcanism within the Cyprus Basin, eastern Mediterranean Sea, demonstrated that the features which Sarmast interprets to be Atlantis consist only of a natural compressional fold caused by local salt tectonics and a slide scar with surficial compressional folds at the downslope end and sides of the slide.^[9] This research collaborates seismic data shown and discussed in theAtlantis: New Revelations 2-hour Special episode ofDigging for the Truth, a History Channel documentary television series. Usingreflection seismology, this documentary demonstrated techniques that what Sarmast interpreted to be artificial walls are natural tectonic landforms.

Furthermore, the interpretation of the age and stratigraphy of sediments blanketing the bottom of the Cyprus Basin from sea bottom cores containing Pleistocene and older marine sediments and thousands of kilometers of seismic lines from the Cyprus and adjacent basins clearly demonstrates that the Mediterranean Sea last dried up during theMessinian Salinity Crisis between 5.59 and 5.33 million years ago.^{[5][9][11][12][13]} For example, research conducted south of Cyprus as part of Leg 160 of the Ocean Drilling Project recovered from Sites 963, 965, and 966 cores of sediments underlying the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea at depths as shallow as 470, 1506, and 1044 meters (1540, 4940, and 3420 ft) below sea level. Thus, these cores came from parts of sea bottom of the eastern Mediterranean Sea that either lie above or at the depth of Sarmast's Atlantis, which lies at depths between 1,470 and 1,510 meters (4,820 and 4,950 ft) below mean sea level.^[9] These cores provide a detailed and continuous record of sea level that demonstrates that for millions of years at least during the entirePliocene,Pleistocene, andHolocene epochs that the feature that Sarmast interprets to be Atlantis and its adjacent sea bottom were always submerged below sea level.^[11] Therefore, the entire Cyprus Basin, including the ridge where Sarmast claims that Atlantis is located, has been submerged beneath the Mediterranean Sea for millions of years.^[7] Since its formation, the sea bottom feature identified by Sarmast as "Atlantis" has always been submerged beneath over a kilometer of water.^[9]

A number of classical scholars have proposed that Plato's inspiration for the story came from the earthquake and tsunami which destroyedHelike in 373 BC, just a few years before he wrote the relevant dialogues.^[14] The claim thatHelike is the inspiration for Plato's Atlantis is also supported by Dora Katsonopoulou and Steven Soter.^[15]

The concept of the identification of Atlantis with the island of Sardinia is the idea that the Italians were involved in theSea Peoples movement (a similar story to Plato's account), that the name "Atlas" may have been derived from "Italos" via the Middle Egyptian language, and Plato's descriptions of the island and the city of Atlantis share several traits with Sardinia and its Bronze Age culture.^{[16][17][18][19][unreliable source?]}

Luigi Usai has claimed Atlantis could be beneathSardinia andCorsica. Atlantis would be the bathymetrically submerged island whose plateaus form what we know as the islands of Sardinia and Corsica outside the surface of the water. The capital would have its center on a hill near the small town ofSantadi, in the province ofCagliari. Starting from the hill next to Santadi, it's possible to see the perfectly circular development of all the town planning. He has also said there are also many toponymic references to the myth of Atlantis, including the two hot and cold water sources placed byPoseidon: the cold water source of Zinnigas, which still remains today also in the name of the "Castello d'Acquafredda" diSiliqua (Coldwater Castle), and the hot water source, present in thetoponymy in three neighborhoods next to the small town of nuxis, still called "Acquacadda" (Hotwater), "S'Acqua Callenti de Susu" and "S'Acqua Callenti de Basciu" (Upper hotwater and Down hotwater), which are small villages next toSantadi.^[20]

Malta, being situated in the dividing line between the western and easternMediterranean Sea, and being home to some of theoldest man-made structures in the world, is considered a possible location of Atlantis both by some current researchers^[21] and by Maltese amateur enthusiasts.^[22]

In the 19th century, the antiquarianGiorgio Grognet de Vassé published a short compendium arguing that Malta was the location of Atlantis. He was inspired by the discovery of the megalithic temples ofĠgantija andĦaġar Qim during his lifetime.^[23]

InMalta fdal Atlantis (Maltese remains of Atlantis) (2002), Francis Galea writes about several older ideas, particularly that of Maltese architect Giorgio Grongnet, who in 1854 thought that the Maltese Islands are the remnants of Atlantis.^[24] However, in 1828, the same Giorgo Grongnet was involved in a scandal concerning forged findings which were intended to provide a "proof" for the claim that Malta was Atlantis.^[25]

Peter James, in his bookThe Sunken Kingdom, identifies Atlantis with the kingdom of Zippasla. He argues thatSolon did indeed gather the story on his travels, but inLydia, notEgypt as Plato states; that Atlantis is identical with Tantalis, the city ofTantalus in Asia Minor, which was (in a similar tradition known to the Greeks) said to have been destroyed by an earthquake; that the legend of Atlantis' conquests in the Mediterranean is based on the revolution by King Madduwattas of Zippasla againstHittite rule; that Zippasla is identical withSipylus, where Greek tradition placed Tantalis; and that the now vanished lake to the north of Mount Sipylus was the site of the city.^[26]

The geoarchaeologistEberhard Zangger has proposed that Atlantis was in fact the city state ofTroy.^[27] He both agrees and disagrees with Rainer W. Kühne: He too believes that the Trojans-Atlanteans were the sea peoples, but only a minor part of them. He proposes that all Greek speaking city states of theAegean civilization orMycenae constituted the sea peoples and that they destroyed each other's economies in a series of semi-fratricidal wars lasting several decades.^[28]

German researchers Siegfried and Christian Schoppe locate Atlantis in theBlack Sea. Before 5500 BC, a great plain lay in the northwest at a former freshwater-lake. In 5510 BC, rising sea level topped the barrier at today'sBosporus. They identify thePillars of Hercules with the Strait ofBosporus.^[30] They gave no explanation how the ships of the merchants coming from all over the world had arrived at the harbour of Atlantis when it was 350 feet below global sea-level.

They claimOreichalcos means theobsidian stone that used to be a cash equivalent at that time and was replaced by thespondylus shell around 5500 BC, which would suit the red, white, black motif. The geocatastrophic event led to theNeolithic diaspora in Europe, also beginning 5500 BC.

The Great Atlantis Flood, by Flying Eagle and Whispering Wind, locates Atlantis in theSea of Azov. These authors propose that the Dialogues of Plato present an accurate account of geological events, which occurred in 9,600 BC, in the Black Sea-Mediterranean Corridor. Glacial melt-waters, at the end of theYounger Dryas Ice Age caused a dramatic rise in the sea level of theCaspian Sea. An earthquake caused a fracture, which allowed the Caspian Sea to flood across the fertile plains of Atlantis. Simultaneously the earthquake caused the vast farmlands of Atlantis to sink, forming the present day Sea of Azov, the shallowest sea in the world.^[31]

Andalusia is a region in modern-day southern Spain which once included the "lost" city ofTartessos, which disappeared in the 6th century BC. The Tartessians were traders known to the Ancient Greeks who knew of their legendary kingArganthonios. The proposal that Andalusia was Atlantis was originally developed by the Spanish authorJuan de Mariana and the Dutch author Johannes van Gorp (Johannes Goropius Becanus), both of the 16th century, later by José Pellicer de Ossau Salas y Tovar in 1673, who suggested that the metropolis of Atlantis was between the islands Mayor and Menor, located almost in the center of the Doñana Marshes,^[32] and expanded upon by Juan Fernández Amador y de los Ríos in 1919, who suggested that the metropolis of Atlantis was located precisely where today are the 'Marismas de Hinojo'.^[33] These claims were made again in 1922 by the German authorAdolf Schulten, and further propagated by Otto Jessen, Richard Hennig,Victor Bérard, and Elena Wishaw in the 1920s. The suggested locations in Andalusia lie outside the Pillars of Hercules, and therefore beyond but close to the Mediterranean itself.

In 2005, based upon the work ofAdolf Schulten, the German teacherWerner Wickboldt also claimed this to be the location of Atlantis.^[34] Wickboldt suggested that the war of the Atlanteans refers to the war of theSea Peoples who attacked the Eastern Mediterranean countries around 1200 BC and that theIron Age city of Tartessos may have been built at the site of the ruined Atlantis. In 2000, Georgeos Diaz-Montexano published an article arguing that Atlantis was located somewhere between Andalusia and Morocco.^[35]

An Andalusian location was also supported by Rainer Walter Kühne in his article that appeared in the journalAntiquity.^[36][37] "Kühne suggests that Plato has used three different historical elements for this tale. (i) Greek tradition on Mycenaean Athens for the description of ancient Athens, (ii) Egyptian records on the wars of the Sea Peoples for the description of the war of the Atlanteans, and (iii) oral tradition from Syracuse about Tartessos for the description of the city and geography of Atlantis." According to Wickboldt,Satellite images show two rectangular shapes on the tops of two small elevations inside the marsh of Doñana which he claims are the "temple ofPoseidon" and "the temple of Cleito and Poseidon".^{[38][failed verification]}On satellite images parts of several "rings" are recognizable, similar in their proportion with the ring system by Plato.^[34] It is not known if any of these shapes are natural or manmade and archaeological excavations are planned.^[39] Geologists have shown that theDoñana National Park experienced intense erosion from 4000 BC until the 9th century AD, where it became a marine environment. For thousands of years until the Medieval Age, all that occupied the area of the modern Marshes Doñana was a gulf or inland sea-arm, but there was not even a small island with sufficient space to house a small village.^{[40][41][clarification needed]}

Two proposals have putSpartel Bank, a submerged former island in theStrait of Gibraltar, as the location of Atlantis. The more well-known claim was proposed in a September 2001 issue ofComptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences by Frenchgeologist Jacques Collina-Girard.^[42] The lesser-known proposal was first published by Spanish-Cuban investigator Georgeos Díaz-Montexano in an April 2000 issue of Spanish magazineMás Allá de la Ciencia (Beyond Science), and later in August 2001 issues of Spanish magazinesEl Museo (The Museum) andAño Cero (Year Zero).^[43] The origin of Collina-Girard's idea is disputed, with Díaz-Montexano claiming it as plagiarism of his own earlier proposal, and Collina-Girard denying any plagiarism. Both individuals claim the other's arguments arepseudoscience.^[43][44]

Collina-Girard states that during the most recent Glacial Maximum of theIce Age sea level was 135 m below its current level, narrowing the Gibraltar Strait and creating a small half-enclosed sea measuring 70 km by 20 km between the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean. The Spartel Bank formed an archipelago in this small sea with the largest island measuring about 10 to 12 kilometers across. With rising ocean levels the island began to slowly shrink, but then at around 9400 BC (11,400 years ago) there was an acceleratedsea level rise of 4 meters per century known asMeltwater pulse 1A, which drowned the top of the main island. The occurrence of a great earthquake and tsunami in this region, similar to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake (magnitude 8.5-9) was proposed by marine geophysicist Marc-Andrè Gutscher as offering a possible explanation for the described catastrophic destruction (reference — Gutscher, M.-A., 2005. Destruction of Atlantis by a great earthquake and tsunami? A geological analysis of the Spartel Bank hypothesis. Geology, v. 33, p. 685-688.).^[45] Collina-Girard proposes that the disappearance of this island was recorded in prehistoric Egyptian tradition for 5,000 years until it was written down by the first Egyptian scribes around 4000-3000 BC, and the story then subsequently inspired Plato to write a fictionalized version interpreted to illustrate his own principles.

A detailed review in theBryn Mawr Classical Review comments on the discrepancies in Collina-Girard's dates and use of coincidences, concluding that he "has certainly succeeded in throwing some light upon some momentous developments in human prehistory in the area west of Gibraltar. Just as certainly, however, he has not found Plato's Atlantis."^[46]

According to Michael Hübner, Atlantis' core region was located in South-West Morocco at the Atlantic Ocean. In his papers,^{[47][48][49][^Ignatius L. Donnelly (1882).Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. Harper. p. 295. Retrieved11 May 2011.}