‘Euphoria’s’ East Highland Is Fictional, But the Clues About Where It Really Exists Are All Over the Screen

Few shows have made a nameless suburb feel as vivid and lived-in as ‘Euphoria’ does. Since its premiere, HBO’s most visually dazzling drama has dropped viewers into a world of neon-lit house parties, fluorescent school hallways, and quiet suburban streets without ever pinning a real dot on the map. The result is a setting that feels intensely specific and yet deliberately universal, which turns out to be entirely by design.

‘Euphoria’ is set in the fictional town of East Highland, and the show has always kept the exact geographic location of that town a deliberate mystery, with showrunner Sam Levinson likely making that creative choice to underline that the issues faced by the characters are not unique to any one place. Drug addiction, fractured family dynamics, and identity crises do not belong to a single zip code, and the setting reflects that.

The Fictional Town of East Highland and What the Show Tells Us

‘Euphoria’ is set in a fictional town called East Highland, where the characters all attend the equally fictional East Highland High School, and the show never comes right out and says where East Highland is located. That said, the series does leave enough environmental clues for a sharp-eyed viewer to make a pretty confident geographic deduction.

Context clues suggest the town must be somewhere in Southern California, with the most telling sign being the complete lack of snow or winter weather, which is particularly noticeable in the second season since it takes place through the middle of a school year. Anyone living in a region with genuine winters would expect at least some seasonal acknowledgment, and ‘Euphoria’ offers none.

The show’s coastal identity is also confirmed through the special episode where Jules is seen standing on a beach, and combined with the lack of winter weather, those clues point clearly toward a Southern California suburb. Jules mentioning in the first season premiere that she moved from the city to the suburbs further builds the picture of a Los Angeles-adjacent community.

It has been suggested the show takes place in a suburb outside of a larger city, consistent with the rhythms of the characters’ lives and their easy access to urban environments for parties, hookups, and trouble. The lack of any explicit confirmation is not an oversight; it is a storytelling tool.

Where ‘Euphoria’ Was Actually Filmed

‘Euphoria’ is filmed in and around Los Angeles, California, with most of the studio work done at Sony Pictures Studios on Washington Boulevard in Culver City. The rotating room sequence in the first episode, one of the show’s most iconic images, was captured right there on the Sony lot.

The fictional East Highland High School is brought to life using Ulysses S. Grant High School, a storied filming location that has appeared in dozens of productions including the 1990s comedy ‘Clueless’ and the television series ‘Saved by the Bell’ and ‘Freaks and Geeks.’ The interiors of the school, however, were recreated on a Sony Studios sound stage to give the production greater creative control.

Other key filming locations across the series include Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance for the mall scenes, and the Alta Dena Dairy store in Temple City, which served as the headquarters for Fezco and Ashtray’s operation. The train station scenes involving Rue and Jules, among the most emotionally resonant in the show, were shot at the historic Union Station.

Since its premiere in June 2019, the American adaptation of the Israeli miniseries has won nine Emmys, one Golden Globe, and eighteen additional awards, with its dedicated following making it one of HBO’s most culturally significant productions of the decade.

How Season 3 Blew the Setting Wide Open

The third season of ‘Euphoria’ premiered on April 12, 2026, and is set five years after the events of the first two seasons, moving entirely away from the high school environment that defined the show’s original identity. The fictional East Highland hallways have been left behind in favor of a much wider canvas.

Sam Levinson told TheWrap that setting the third season in California plays on the idea of the dream of what California represents, noting that he wanted it to feel real but also connected to a collective cultural memory of the state, with the new season spotlighting diversity across California’s landscapes and communities from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles. In his words, the new locations started creating a tapestry that felt fresh and exciting.

In the third season, Rue is no longer a teenager spiraling under her mother’s roof but an adult version of her messy teenage self, finding herself in Mexico and in debt to a drug lord, with the DEA circling. Cassie and Nate are still tied to East Highland and engaged, while Maddy has relocated to Hollywood and Jules has drifted into an arrangement with an older man.

The third season opens with a striking setpiece involving Rue behind the wheel of a Jeep stuck on top of a border wall between two countries, a sequence that Levinson and cinematographer Marcell Rév describe as resetting the show’s entire visual palette using a wider aspect ratio and 65mm film to reflect the dangerous maturity of the new story.

Why the Ambiguity of ‘Euphoria’s’ Setting Still Matters

The decision to keep East Highland’s location vague appears to be a deliberate choice by Sam Levinson to make the point that the issues faced by the high schoolers are not unique to any one particular geographic area, since drug addiction, abuse, trauma, and cyberbullying are present in rural areas, cities, and everywhere in between. East Highland is, in many ways, every town.

Levinson has spoken about the fentanyl crisis as a significant thematic driver behind the new season, noting that the death of Angus Cloud from an accidental overdose involving fentanyl raised profound questions for him about how the drug is entering the country and affecting communities everywhere. That borderless quality of addiction reinforces exactly why ‘Euphoria’ never wanted its setting to feel like someone else’s problem in someone else’s zip code.

Zendaya has noted that closure is coming with the third season, and HBO has acknowledged internally that this chapter may be the final one, with HBO’s Head of Drama Francesca Orsi saying it has been discussed that the show is reaching its end. Whether or not ‘Euphoria’ continues past this season, East Highland has already cemented itself as one of the most evocative fictional American towns in prestige television history.

If you watched ‘Euphoria’ and found yourself convinced the show was set somewhere near where you grew up, that is probably exactly the reaction Sam Levinson was hoping for, so which suburb did East Highland remind you of?