Modern Geography
Africa and The Middle East: Lights of a Dark Continent
- Carbombya, {Transformers ₁₉₈₄} formerly known as the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya is part of the Maghreb region of northern Africa, and is the fourth-largest country on the continent. The region has been inhabited since the Bronze Age, primarily by Berbers, and was subjected to pre-modern colonization by the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans in succession. After the Fall of Rome, the lands that would become Carbombya were occupied by the Vandals until the 7th century, when colonization began again, this time by Islamic Arabs who would shape the country from that point onward: Carbombya became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1551 and remained part of it through to the 20th century, when Italy gained control. Carbombya finally became independent again following the Second World War. From 1969 to 2011, Carbombya was a dictatorship led by Abdul Fakkadi, a tentative ally of the Western powers against the Soviet Union, which ended in a violent revolution which saw Fakkadi's death. The primary Carbombyan exports are oil and camels.
- The Republic of Equatorial Kundu {The West Wing ₁₉₉₉} is an important ally of the United States in Central Africa, despite controversies over a civil war and ethnic cleansing which took place in the wake of a coup d'état in late October 2000, which saw Western-allied President Nimbala executed as soon as he returned from a negotiation with the President of the United States for an AIDS relief deal. By 2003, the ethnic cleansing of the Induye minority by the Arkuto reached 25,000, which led to American soldiers being deployed to Equatorial Kundu to act as a peacekeeping force. Historically, Equatorial Kundu was known as Zangaro {The Dogs of War ₁₉₇₄} and then Buranda. {Yes, Minister ₁₉₈₀}
- Gorilla City {DC Comics} is an isolated city-state, an enclave within the Katanga region of the Congo, the result of an extraterrestrial spacecraft crashing in the region and uplifting local gorilla populations to . It was rumored starting in the 20th century that a society of intelligent gorillas may have existed somewhere in darkest Africa, but it was only confirmed May 1959 when an exile from Gorilla City--the supervillain known as Gorilla Grodd--appeared in Central City, searching for a way to use mind control to take over the his countryapes and, in turn, conquer the world. Even then, the existence of Gorilla City was kept a secret at the request of its leader, Solovar, until 1999 when it formally joined the United Nations.
- The Republic of Matobo {The Interpreter ₂₀₀₅} is a landlocked country in southern Africa. Though once considered a freedom fighter, its president Edmond Zuwanie is now almost universally regarded as a tyrant and Matobo is held as one of the worst dictatoships of the modern world.
- Mombaka {Red Scorpion ₁₉₈₈} is a former communist state in southern Africa, formerly a Portuguese colony. Forces from Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union participated in a civil war against anti-communist rebels, but were defeated when Spetsnaz operative Nikolai Rachenko defected and helped the rebels defeat the communist government.
- Wakanda {Marvel Comics} is a small northeastern Afircan state, wedged between numerous other small states and touching the northern shores of Lake Turkana. According to local legend, Wakanda was founded around 8,000 BC by Bashenga, also known as the Black Panther, a title which has been passed down to all other Wakandan kings through to the present-day. Notably, Wakanda is one of the few African states to experience no colonization during the Age of Imperialism, (though not for lack of trying, as Britain attempted to incorporate Wakanda into its empire during the period, only to be stopped by the previous Black Panther, T'Chaka) along with Ethiopia and Liberia, and is the world's only exporter of vibranium. Wakanda is also noted for its high population of X-gene mutants, thought to have been caused by the Vibranium Mound from which Wakanda draws its export. While Wakanda kept pace with the rest of the world--unusually for an African state, most of which were deliberately repressed by imperialism and then supplied with modern technology during the proxy conflicts of the Cold War, breeding most of the conflicts which plague the continent--its isolationism and extensive use of vibranium makes Wakandan technology almost incompatible with the rest of the world.
The Americas: In the Rubble of Utopia
- Laputa {Gulliver's Travels ₁₇₂₆, Castle in the Sky ₁₉₈₆} is a floating island, exactly circular and 4.5 miles in diameter which drifts around the northern Pacific Ocean (especially around Balnibarbi in the Aleutian Islands) by virtue of magnetism created by a combination of adamantium and volucite, which also made it a major (though extremely isolationist) world power in the pre-modern era. The island was notably visited by Lemuel Gulliver in the early 18th century.
- Santa Prisca {DC Comics} is a small island in the Gulf of Mexico, a former Spanish colony infamous for its prominent role in the illegal drug trade, the maximum security prison Peña Dura, and as the birthplace of the supervillain known only as Bane. Like unfortunately many small Latin American countries, Santa Prisca gives off a pleasing atmosphere of beaches and resorts on the surface but is actually controlled by drug lords and their enforcers who pay off local law enforcement to have free reign.
- Val Verde {20th Century Fox media} is a Central American country; the isthmus which forms the middle part of the country is bisected by the Val Verde Canal, essentially marking where the two American continents meet. In 1989, it was invaded by the United States with the goal of arresting the Val Verdean president and military commander Franz Sanchez. {Licence to Kill ₁₉₈₉} Several official reasons were given for Operation Just Cause, including human rights violations and connections to the international drug trade, but according to one participant in the invasion, Frank Woods, it was because Sanchez had been found to be an associate of Raul Menendez. {Call of Duty ₂₀₀₃}
Asia and the Australias: Visions of Cathay
- The Islamic Republic of Helmajistan {Full Metal Panic! ₁₉₉₈} is a mountainous Middle Eastern country, strategically located along the Silk Road but wedged between China, Iran, Qumran, and the former Soviet Union. This made it a prime target of occupation and attempted conquest throughout history, weathering invasions by Alexander the Great, the Mauryans, the Mongols, the British, the Soviet Union, and most recently the United States. From 1979 to 1989, Helmajistan was invaded by the Soviet Union, which was resisted by insurgent groups such as the Mujahideen with support from China and the Western powers. {Call of Duty ₂₀₀₃} The Soviet-Helmaji War became a proving ground for many figures of the late Cold War, including the Roanapur-based crime syndicate Hotel Moscow, comprised of ex-Soviet veterans of the war, {Black Lagoon ₂₀₀₂} and infamous terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Starting in 2001, the United States invaded and occupied Helmajistan in order to oust the Taliban government for their support of bin Laden, who late in that year had conducted the September 11 attacks which destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. Historically, the Khanate of Kaloon was located within its modern borders. {She ₁₈₈₇}
- Kamine Island, {Code Geass ₂₀₀₆} also known historically as "the Isle of the Damned," {The Zombie Survival Guide ₂₀₀₃} is a small Central Pacific island located at 32°N 212°W {The Powerpuff Girls ₁₉₉₈} several hundred kilometers southeast of mainland Japan. The earliest settlement of the island was sometime before or during the Heian period by Japanese who formed their own country, but the kingdom was destroyed by Aku, a shapeshifting demon thought to have arrived in the region millions of years before, causing a localized extinction event. {Samurai Jack ₂₀₀₁} Aku was eventually destroyed by a samurai whose name is lost to history, whose descendants founded a new religion on the island and built a "Thought Elevator." In 1579, the island was visited by Francis Drake, who witnessed a group of natives bringing a dying man to a remote cay where zombies prowled, but took the knowledge of it to his grave, mentioning it only in a secret journal. Drake's journal was published in 1907, which led Imperial Japan to establish a garrison on the island in an effort to weaponize zombies for Project Cherry Blossom during World War II, by which time all the native inhabitants had died. In the closing days of the war, after the island's defenses had been softened in a solo mission by Donald Duck, {Commando Duck ₁₉₄₄} the United States military invaded and occupied Kamine Island to such an extent that it was eventually incorporated into the United States as an overseas territory, and was incorporated as the city of Townsville, named for its founder, Charles "Pinpoint" Townes. {Command & Conquer ₁₉₉₅} In the following decades, Townsville attracted high levels of criminal activity which, through pure happenstance, came to be countered by a trio of superheroines known as the Powerpuff Girls, who defend the island not only from local criminals and supervillains but also from attacks by the inhabitants of nearby Monster Island.
- The Principality of Madripoor {Marvel Comics} is a small Southeast Asian island in the Strait of Malacca between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. Once used by pirates as safe haven under the protection of the successive Pirate Lords of the South China Sea, Madripoor is controversial to this day for its non-extradition treaties in relation to its criminal underworld.
- The Islamic Republic of Qumran, formerly known as Kumranistan, {Yes, Minister ₁₉₈₀} straddles the Middle East and South Asia, formerly part of British India.
- Noble's Island {The Island of Doctor Moreau ₁₈₉₆} is a remote island in the eastern Pacific, infamous for being where Alphonse Moreau conducted his vivisection experiments in an attempt to biologically uplift animals.
Europe: From Aiolio to Zenda
The Polar Regions: To The Ends Of The Earth
- The Leap Islands {The Monikins ₁₈₃₅} are an archipelago of ten islands, officially part of the United Kingdom but in practice are divided into ten small kingdoms: Leaphigh, Leaplow, Leapup, Leapdown, Leapover, Leapthrough, Leaplong, Leapshort, Leapround, and Leapunder.
Historical States
Lost Worlds and Mythical Kingdoms
Legends about of far-off, hidden lands have existed for almost all of recorded history. Though many of these places have since been discovered or rediscovered, they maintain their descriptors as being lost or mythical because, in the eyes of many, they still retain these fantastic qualities. This reputation as remaining lost and mythical even today isn't entirely undeserved--many such places are "prehistoric enclaves" where, somehow, fossil animals such as dinosaurs still live.
- Ahm Shere {The Mummy ₁₉₉₉} was a oasis in the remote reaches of Egypt, created when Mathayus the Scorpion King offered his soul to "the dark god Anubis"--in truth, evidence in all accounts of the legend suggest that it was not Anubis, but Nyarlathotep {Cthulhu mythos}--in exchanged for an army with which he could destroy his enemies. When Mathayus succeeded, "Anubis" took back his army and sealed him in a tomb at the heart of Ahm Shere, where he was transformed into a scorpion-like demon foretold to awaken centuries later to destroy the world. The legends of Ahm Shere have attracted many explorers over the course of history: Rameses IV, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoléon Bonaparte all sent expeditions to find it, but none of them ever returned.
- Atlantis {Timaeus and Critias ₃₆₀ᵇᶜ} in ancient times was an entire continent in the Atlantic Ocean, but a massive geological upheaval caused most of its to sink into the ocean c. 9,500 BC, and most of its remains were later submerged by meltwater from the last geological period. Some regions of Atlantis remained above the surface for several more centuries and even millennia, but inevitably all of Atlantis as it was once known slipped beneath the waves. All was not lost, however: not only did many Ancient Atlanteans escape its destruction and survive, but Atlantis itself still exists today as an underwater monarchy--though a fraction of its original size--which remained hidden from the world for thousands of years. All that changed in November 1941 when the King of Atlantis, Arthur Curry, witnessed an attack by a German U-boat on an Allied hospital ship and decided to intervene, signaling Atlantis' entry to World War II on the side of the Allies. {DC Comics}
- Maple White Land {The Lost World ₁₉₁₂} is a remote plateau in Noel Kempff Mercado National Park in Bolivia, one of the most famous prehistoric enclaves in the world. It was most famously visited by George Edward Challenger in 1912, who sought to prove the claims of its namesake Maple White and even returned with a live Vultursaurus (mistaken for a Dimorphodon at the time) as proof of its existence, but was ridiculed at the time when the animal escaped and was never seen again, with detractors claiming that it was merely a bird of some kind.
- Skull Island {King Kong ₁₉₃₃, King Kong ₂₀₀₅} was a tiny remnant of the prehistoric supercontinent Gondwana, located far to the west of Sumatra, and is considered an archetypal prehistoric enclave along with Maple White Land. The island is most famous for once being home to a gigantic species of ape, Megaprimatus kong, the last specimen of which was discovered by an expedition led by director Carl Denham in 1933. In 1948, Skull Island's geological instability led to its destruction in 1948, slipping into the sea and taking its unique fauna with it.
Archaeological Sites
Even centuries or millennia after they vanish from the face of the Earth, evidence of many ancient civilizations persists.
- Many places throughout the world are claimed to be remnants of Ancient Atlantis {Timaeus and Critias ₃₆₀ᵇᶜ} (not to be confused with the modern underwater country of Atlantis) with varying degrees of credibility.
- Arkantos Island in the Azores is thought to be the last piece of what was once a larger island--perhaps as large as 100,000 sq km--which was populated by a relict population of Ancient Atlanteans, descendants of refugees from when the original Atlantis was destroyed c. 9,500 BC. According to legend, this island was destroyed and sank into the sea in the aftermath of the Trojan War when a cyclops named Gargarensis invaded and tried to use a gate leading into Tartarus to unleash Kronos, the King of the Titans, but was stopped by Atlantean admiral Arkantos; {Age of Mythology ₂₀₀₂} some versions of The Iliad mention an Arkantos as participating in the Trojan War, giving some small level of credibility to this legend. The myth goes on to state that, after a decade, the last remaining piece of this "Old Atlantis" was resettled by survivors of its destruction led by Arkantos' son Kastor, who attempted to rebuild the city, but it had withered and died by 1000 AD, long before the Azores entered recorded history. Rumors of the Azores being identified with Atlantis in some way sprang up almost immediately after its discovery, but potential evidence of this was only discovered in the 1980s when location scouts of International Genetics Technologies, Inc., were searching for a place to build Jurassic Park: Europe. In their surveys, these scouts discovered Ancient Atlantean artifacts and evidence suggesting that the Atlanteans had founded a monotheistic religion which venerated Arkantos as a god.