Tiphares is the mid-air city from the popular manga, '
Battle Angel Alita'. In the first few manga, not much is known about Tiphares, but it gets explained more in the later books. It is home to the elite, made up of doctors, scientists, and other highly intelligent people. Its junk is expelled from the bottom of the city, onto the Scrap Yard, making it very dirty.
SPOILER: Don't read this if you haven't read all of the Battle Angel Alita manga.
******The truth about Tiphares! It was constructed hundreds of years ago, in the distant future, to revitalise humanity and protect it from extinction. However, to keep the humans from becoming extinct, they created genetically superior humans. Their brains were extracted during initiation to become a citizen of Tiphares, replacing them with computer chips that would make them genetically advanced. This chip caused them to behave in a certain way, and to not question their reason for living in this place. Readers will find out about this secret in the graphic novel, 'Angel's Ascension'.******
Many from the scrap yard have worshipped Tiphares as a god, and many have tried to travel there, but it is difficult to get to, you would be killed if you dare attempt to get there. And example of this: Hugo's older brother attempted to travel to Tiphares in a hand-made hot air balloon, but before he was able to fly it, he got killed for trying such a thing. Hugo himself wished to travel to Tiphares, but what he didn't know was no one from the scrapyard could travel there. See 'the truth about Tiphares.'
Tiphares controls the Scrap Yard using machines, such as Deckmen, who work the Factory, registering people as Hunter Warriors, maintaining the peace, and supervise the statistics for the game Motorball.
In the latest installation of Battle Angel Alita, Alita finds herself in Tiphares for the first time, and the horrors it presents are quite disturbing.