Where It All Goes Down
A Tiny Little Town
Pippi's house is located in an old overgrown garden "way out at the end of a tiny little town" (1.1), which is never identified by name. Indeed, we don't even have a clue where in the world it might be located except for the name of her house, Villa Villekulla, which sounds a bit Scandinavian. But given that Pippi and her dad have travelled all over, the house's name may not reflect its actual location at all, and it could very well just be a name they picked up on one of their voyages. Which means that this tiny little town could be anywhere.
And any time. There's no mention of Internet or cell phones (Pippi would surely have a rocking Twitter feed if there were), and there are no televisions or automobiles as far as we know—although there is a fire engine. Still, none of this makes the story feel antiquated. Sure the kids spend a lot of time outside (what? without a GPS?), but they're kids, so that seems pretty normal for just about any era.
So the setting is pretty vague, but we think that's intentional. By not anchoring Pippi in a particular time or place, Lindgren has allowed this story to live on as a universal tale of the essence of childhood: long days of play, lots of imagination, and the belief that anything is possible.