Is Handmaid’s Tale’s Gilead a Real Place? Filming Location Explained

Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments spinoff is set in the Republic of Gilead — but is it a real place?

Based on Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same name, The Handmaid’s Tale, which aired from 2017 to 2025, took place in a dystopian future where low fertility rates led women to be assigned to men for bearing children.

The series starred Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Madeline Brewer, Ann Dowd, O-T Fagbenle, Max Minghella, Samira Wiley and Amanda Brugel. On screen, the show explained Gilead as an area formed following a Second American Civil War.

The Republic of Gilead covered parts of what used to be the U.S. with complete occupation taking place in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Other areas are considered disputed territory while the remaining American government fled to Canada with some American refugees.

Off screen, filming on the series largely took place in Toronto, Mississauga, Brantford, Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville and Cambridge, Ontario. The second season featured many of the same locations while season 3 included scenes in Washington, D.C.

The Handmaid’s Tale is expanding its TV universe with The Testaments, which is narrated by Ann Dowd’s Aunt Lydia as viewers are thrust back into the dystopian future with characters such as Agnes from Gilead and Daisy from Canada — as they secretly gather and smuggle incriminating information about Gilead’s regime out of the country. Agnes and Daisy pose as “Pearl Girls” to infiltrate Canada, while Aunt Lydia acts as a covert source within Gilead.

“We are making The Testaments, and it’s not going to track precisely,” creator Bruce Miller told TVLine in 2022. “Margaret writes these absolutely deliciously specific characters. We had to go away from that in Handmaid’s, and we’re going to have to go away from that in Testaments. Testaments is certainly going to be a sequel to the show.”

More recently, The Handmaid’s Tale showrunner Yahlin Chang teased how the show set up spinoff The Testaments, telling TV Insider in March 2025, “For sure, there will be cliffhangers for The Testaments, so it doesn’t conclude everything.”

The sixth season of The Handmaid’s Tale wrapped up certain plot points “in some very satisfying ways.”

“Any fans that are left wanting more are going to get more in The Testaments, which will be great for them,” Chang continued. “But it does conclude in some very satisfying ways many of the story lines, but not every single one.”

The Testaments premieres April 8 on Hulu.