Kingstown is not a real Michigan city. In Mayor of Kingstown, it is a fictional prison-centered town inspired primarily by Kingston, Ontario. Season 1 was filmed in southern Ontario, while Seasons 2 through 5 were filmed mainly in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Kingstown is not a real Michigan city. In Mayor of Kingstown, Kingstown is a fictional prison-centered community in Michigan. The town’s principal real-world inspiration is Kingston, Ontario, the hometown of co-creator Hugh Dillon. The series was filmed first in southern Ontario, including Kingston Penitentiary, and then primarily in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from Season 2 onward.
That distinction explains most of the confusion surrounding the show. There are three different “Kingstowns” to keep separate:
- Story setting: fictional Kingstown, Michigan.
- Creative inspiration: Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
- Filming locations: southern Ontario for Season 1, then Pittsburgh and the surrounding western Pennsylvania region for later seasons, with additional reported filming near Erie and in Cumberland, Maryland.
If you are catching up before visiting any of these places, you can watch Mayor of Kingstown on Paramount+, subject to the service’s current availability in your country.
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Why is Kingstown set in Michigan?
The show’s Kingstown is a fictional Michigan town built around incarceration. The McLusky family acts as an informal power broker among prisoners, guards, police, gangs, and local officials because the town’s most important industry is its prison system.
Paramount’s official description presents Kingstown as a community dominated by the business and politics of incarceration. The series uses Michigan as its fictional geography, but it does not attempt to document one identifiable Michigan town. The setting is an invented dramatic environment assembled from prison architecture, industrial cities, working-class neighborhoods, bridges, waterfronts, and institutional landscapes.
The choice of Michigan also helps the production create a believable Rust Belt atmosphere without making the series a literal account of one real city. Kingstown’s geography is deliberately broad: it feels like a post-industrial Great Lakes community, but the town shown on screen does not exist as depicted.
Kingston, Ontario: the real inspiration
The name and central premise come largely from Kingston, Ontario. Hugh Dillon was born and raised there, and his childhood was shaped by living near a city with a notable concentration of correctional institutions.
Kingston’s prison landscape—including Kingston Penitentiary and the former Prison for Women—made incarceration part of the ordinary civic environment. The visual presence of guard towers, prison walls, institutional buildings, and correctional workers informed the show’s central idea: what happens to a community when prisons are not a peripheral institution but its dominant economic and social force?
Dillon has described his connection to Kingston’s prison infrastructure in interviews and official series biographies. Those accounts suggest that the inspiration is observational and emotional rather than autobiographical in a literal sense. Mayor of Kingstown borrows the feeling of growing up around a prison city, then transforms that experience into heightened crime drama.
Is Mayor of Kingstown based on a true story?
No—not in the sense of being a true-story adaptation. It is more accurate to describe the series as fictional drama inspired by a real city and its creator’s upbringing.
Kingston, Ontario, is real, and its correctional history helped inspire the show. But the fictional Michigan town, the McLusky family, the prison brokers, gang conflicts, and specific storylines are not presented as documentary accounts of Kingston. The series heightens and reshapes the premise for a crime thriller.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchIn other words, Kingston supplied the starting point, not a complete factual blueprint. A viewer should not treat the show as a guide to Kingston’s actual prison system or as a direct representation of life in any one Michigan or Ontario community.
Where was Season 1 filmed?
Season 1 was filmed primarily in southern Ontario between approximately May 17 and October 4, 2021. The production used Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, Burlington, and Toronto-area studio facilities.
Kingston Penitentiary
Kingston Penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario, is the signature real-world filming location associated with the series. The production filmed there for approximately three weeks in 2021, according to Visit Kingston. Its limestone walls, guard towers, cell blocks, workshops, walkways, and enclosed circulation areas supplied much of the prison imagery in the first season.
The former maximum-security prison gives the show a scale and texture that would be difficult to reproduce entirely on a conventional soundstage. Its architecture also reinforces the connection between the fictional series and Kingston’s real correctional heritage.
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Toronto, Hamilton, Burlington, and studio locations
Southern Ontario supplied the production infrastructure and additional settings needed for the first season. Toronto-area locations and facilities were combined with filming in Hamilton and Burlington, as well as Stratagem Studios in Toronto.
Some location databases and entertainment reports identify highly specific Toronto sites, including Filmores Gentlemen’s Club for a strip-club sequence. Those granular claims are best treated as location reporting rather than as the central, officially documented production facts. The safest summary is that Season 1 was shot across southern Ontario, with Kingston Penitentiary providing the recognizable prison location and Toronto-area facilities supplying additional urban, studio, and neighborhood settings.
Why did filming move to Pittsburgh?
Beginning with Season 2, production shifted to Pittsburgh and the surrounding western Pennsylvania region. Hugh Dillon said the production wanted to scale up and that Pittsburgh’s decommissioned prison properties offered the right environment for the show’s expanding world.
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Pittsburgh works especially well as a stand-in for fictional Kingstown because the region combines:
- Former correctional facilities and institutional buildings.
- Dense neighborhoods climbing steep hillsides.
- Bridges crossing rivers and valleys.
- Steel, recycling, warehouse, and industrial corridors.
- Weathered commercial streets and older residential blocks.
- A gray, post-industrial visual palette that matches the series’ mood.
The move does not mean the fictional town changed from Michigan to Pennsylvania. Kingstown remains a fictional Michigan setting in the story. Pittsburgh became the production base because its landscape could convincingly represent the invented town.
Major Pittsburgh-area filming locations
Former Western Penitentiary, also called SCI-Pittsburgh
The former Western Penitentiary site—often referred to in production coverage as SCI-Pittsburgh—became one of the most important later-season locations. Pennsylvania state planning documents identify the property’s use for Seasons 2 and 3 and describe production investment in parts of the former prison complex, including Cell Block F and other buildings.
The site helped provide recurring prison interiors and exteriors, including locations suitable for large background sequences. That is why the prison environment in later seasons often feels more consistently connected to Pittsburgh than to the Ontario locations used in Season 1.
The property should not automatically be treated as a public attraction. Former correctional facilities may be private, restricted, altered, or unsafe without authorized access. Do not attempt to enter a filming site unless the property owner or an official tour operator expressly permits it.
Pittsburgh bridges, neighborhoods, and industrial corridors
Pittsburgh’s bridges, river valleys, residential hillsides, and industrial zones repeatedly provide the visual language of Kingstown. Location reporting identifies the 16th Street Bridge, also known as the David McCullough Bridge, in the Season 3 finale, along with other Pittsburgh-area streets and industrial locations.
McKeesport city records also document film activity connected to Mayor of Kingstown in 2024. These records help confirm how broadly the production used the region rather than indicating that every visible street or structure represents a permanent attraction.
Pittsburgh City-County Building
Location research identifies the lobby of the Pittsburgh City-County Building as a reported Season 3 location for “Five at Five.” This is a scene-level location claim rather than one of the principal facts highlighted in Paramount’s official production materials, so it is best described as reported rather than as a definitive official location list.
Were scenes filmed near Erie and Presque Isle?
Reported Season 2 filming locations also include the Erie area, including Presque Isle Bay and Lampe Marina. These waterfront settings broaden the visual geography of the fictional town and provide lakefront and boating imagery that cannot be inferred from Pittsburgh’s hills and river corridors alone.
Because the most detailed evidence for these sites comes from location reporting rather than a complete Paramount episode-by-episode production list, they should be treated as reported filming locations—not as a definitive inventory of every scene.
Season 3 and Season 4 production
Paramount announced that Season 3 production began in Pittsburgh on January 10, 2024. The season premiered in June 2024, and official Paramount materials identified Pittsburgh as the production base.
Season 4 premiered on October 26, 2025, and its official episode guide lists ten episodes, ending with the December 28, 2025 finale. The story continued to take place in fictional Kingstown, Michigan, while production reporting continued to place the filming base in and around Pittsburgh.
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Where was Season 5 filmed?
Season 5 was announced as the fifth and final season. Paramount announced on January 5, 2026, that the final season would consist of eight episodes. Production began in Pittsburgh, with David Morse joining the cast, according to Paramount’s March 13, 2026 announcement.
By July 2, 2026, CBS Pittsburgh reported that filming had wrapped in the Pittsburgh area. The Pittsburgh Film Office said the production had accumulated 457 shoot days in the region across its run and generated more than $325 million in local economic impact.
Season 5 also filmed at Canal Place in Cumberland, Maryland, in Allegany County, according to a Maryland government release. Cumberland should therefore be understood as an additional Season 5 production location, not a replacement for Pittsburgh as the show’s principal later-season base. The available information confirms production activity there but does not establish which specific scenes were filmed at Canal Place.
As of the research date—August 11, 2026—Paramount had announced the final season and production had wrapped, but no premiere date should be supplied unless Paramount publishes a newer official announcement.
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Confirmed production bases and reported scene locations
| Place | Role in the series | Evidence and qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Kingston, Ontario | Primary inspiration; Hugh Dillon’s hometown | Strongly supported by creator and official tourism materials |
| Kingston Penitentiary | Major Season 1 prison location and visual anchor | Strongly supported by Visit Kingston and production-related materials |
| Toronto-area studios and locations | Season 1 urban and production infrastructure | Supported by production references |
| Hamilton and Burlington | Season 1 filming areas | Supported by production references |
| Pittsburgh | Principal production base from Season 2 onward | Supported by Pennsylvania records and Paramount materials |
| Former Western Penitentiary/SCI-Pittsburgh | Major later-season prison location | Supported by Pennsylvania state documentation and production coverage |
| Pittsburgh City-County Building | Reported Season 3 scene location | Location research; not presented as a central official Paramount listing |
| 16th Street Bridge/David McCullough Bridge | Reported Season 3 scene location | Location reporting |
| Presque Isle Bay and Lampe Marina | Reported Season 2 waterfront locations | Location reporting; not a complete official scene map |
| Canal Place, Cumberland, Maryland | Reported Season 5 filming location | Government release confirms production presence; specific scene role is unspecified |
Can you visit the Mayor of Kingstown filming locations?
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston is the best destination for understanding the show’s inspiration and Season 1 connection. Visitors interested in the series should focus on:
- Kingston Penitentiary: the defining real-world prison location associated with the show.
- The area around the former penitentiary: useful for seeing how correctional architecture exists alongside an ordinary city.
- Kingston’s film and heritage resources: local tourism materials provide context for screen locations and the city’s correctional history.
- The former Prison for Women site: relevant to Kingston’s broader prison history, although access and any production connection should be checked before visiting.
Kingston Penitentiary is a heritage and former correctional site, not an unrestricted movie set. Tour schedules, operating status, visitor eligibility, and photography rules can change. Check directly with the relevant local operator before making travel plans.
Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the better destination for the visual world of Seasons 2 through 5. A responsible visit should focus on public viewpoints, bridges, streets, river scenery, industrial architecture, and officially permitted attractions. Many exact production locations are private, operational, restricted, or changed after filming.
Do not assume that a former prison, warehouse, municipal building, marina, or bridge visible in the series is open to visitors. A self-guided filming-location trip should never involve trespassing, entering restricted correctional property, blocking working streets, or treating an active public facility as a tourist site.
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What the filming geography tells us about the show
The production history reveals why the series can feel geographically coherent even though it was filmed in different countries and states. Kingston supplied the original prison-city idea and the most important Season 1 prison architecture. Pittsburgh then provided a larger, more flexible industrial and correctional landscape for the show’s continuing world.
Rather than reproducing one literal town, the series combines recognizable features of Great Lakes and Rust Belt communities: prisons beside ordinary neighborhoods, industrial decline, steep streets, bridges, waterfronts, and local economies shaped by large institutions. The result is fictional Kingstown—a Michigan town that does not exist on a map but draws on real places on both sides of the Canada–United States border.
Quick answer
Where is Kingstown? The Kingstown in Mayor of Kingstown is a fictional town in Michigan.
What inspired it? Kingston, Ontario, especially its prison history and Hugh Dillon’s connection to the city.
Where was Season 1 filmed? Primarily in southern Ontario, with Kingston Penitentiary as the most recognizable location.
Where were the later seasons filmed? Primarily in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania, with reported filming near Erie and additional Season 5 work in Cumberland, Maryland.
Is the series a true story? No. It is fictional crime drama inspired by a real city and a creator’s upbringing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Kingstown, Michigan, a real place?
No. Kingstown, Michigan, is fictional. The town was inspired primarily by Kingston, Ontario, Hugh Dillon’s hometown and a city known for its concentration of correctional institutions.
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Where was Mayor of Kingstown filmed?
Kingston, Ontario, is the main inspiration. Season 1 was filmed across southern Ontario, including Kingston Penitentiary, Toronto, Hamilton, Burlington, and Toronto-area studio facilities. From Season 2 onward, filming moved primarily to Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania.
Was Mayor of Kingstown filmed in a real prison?
Kingston Penitentiary is the major real prison location connected to Season 1. It did not supply every prison scene in the series; later seasons relied heavily on the former Western Penitentiary/SCI-Pittsburgh site and other Pennsylvania locations.
Where was Season 5 of Mayor of Kingstown filmed?
Season 5 is the announced final season and contains eight episodes. Production began and later wrapped in the Pittsburgh area, with additional reported filming at Canal Place in Cumberland, Maryland. A premiere date should not be assumed until Paramount announces one.
The Bottom Line
Kingstown is fictional, but its inspiration is real: Kingston, Ontario, provided the name, prison-city premise, and Hugh Dillon’s personal connection, while southern Ontario and Pittsburgh supplied the on-screen locations. Kingston Penitentiary is the key Season 1 site; Pittsburgh is the principal later-season production base. Season 5 is the announced final season, but its premiere date should be confirmed through Paramount rather than inferred from production news.
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