Bergonian Places--
Detailed descriptions of cities & regions, according to Lesre.
Amota-- The Eastern States
The atrei living in this region speak Minidun, although a few other small indigenous languages are spoken too. The Whites living in this region are mainly descended from Portuguese settlers, although in Halemarec one finds some French speakers, and in Saldeia there live a few English speakers.
Bruntaigo -- Anglicized island off the eastern coast.
Bunamota -- cradle of civilization in the east, densely populated, with large Portuguese minority.
Halemarec -- populous coastal state, with Bergonia's biggest port city.
Sacamota -- inland, with rolling hills, ancient farms and a large beautiful lake.
Saldeia -- (also known as Salienta) dry lowlands & pretty coastline, big industrial city of Mragatai-Gibson. Portuguese minority.
Sargaso -- newest state, created in 2004. small, balmy, subtropical islands in the Sargaso Sea.
Sansan -- small mountainous state, in Amota region, terrace agriculture, few Europeans.
Amota borders between subtropical and semiarid climates, The weather here is most often clear and warm, with 20-35 inches sporadic rainfall annually in the lowlands, depending on trade winds and thunderstorms generated by the Azores Subtropical High. Heavy precipitation between 2500 and 5000 ft altitude produces cloud forests.
Halemarec is
approximately 38,500 square miles and is home to 14,400,000 people, with a
population density of 348 per mile.
For centuries before Columbus' coming it was the state of Glenrec, fiercely independent and consistently over the centuries a coherent self-ruling state. The people of Glenrec mythologized their successes in resisting the armies of the Second Ceiolaian Empire. Over the centuries to the present day they have maintained a passionate rivalry with Ceiolai that at times puzzles the more serene Ceiolaians. Even now the respective fans of their soccer and baseball teams despise each other. In the Medieval Period it derived power and prosperity from its control of the sea trade of the Sargaso.
The Capital City of Glen, the nation's 3rd largest city and largest port.
On the northern shore of the great estuary that forms the mouth of the Zein River is the city of Glen. With 5.2 million people, Glen is the nation's third largest city, exceeded only by Ceiolai and Lefitoni, and one of Bergonia's truly cosmopolitan cities, with every ethnic group represented. It is the capital of Halemarec, and the nation's largest port, handling much of the sea trade with Europe. Glen is a media center, next to Ceiolai the second largest source of Minidun language publishing, and home to major theater and performance art. Glen is a major industrial center as well, for much of the nation's ship building industry is located there. There are steel mills as well. A number of the national industrial cooperatives, including steel, have their headquarters here.
There has been a
lot of recent construction in Glen, but the greater part of this sprawling coastal city consists of
older
townhouses, apartment blocks and industrial tenements, none over four
stories tall. It is a city first
and foremost of neighborhoods, each with its own tapestry of small plazas,
parks and narrow streets. Food vendors and peddlers line the plazas
where neighbors congregate in the evenings. People sit on their front
porches and stoops, and in the parks, and socialize. Older Minidun men
gamble for hours into the night at tables set up at street corners. Certain
blocks and commons are expropriated by teenagers and young adults, who mingle and
flirt. The older part of the city is laced with canals to allow water taxis
and small delivery boats. Glen has a tradition dating back to ancient times of painting its
houses bright cheery colors: turquoise, pink, bright greens, yellow and orange.
People have nick-named it "Coropolis," from the Portuguese côr.
Glen is an ancient city. There is clear archaeological and historical evidence of a city of perhaps 20,000 people flourishing contemporaneously in ancient times with the Kuan civilization to the south. The city dwellers were probably Pasan, but at some point, probably in the year 310 B.C., during the time of the rise of the first Ceiolaian Empire, Miniduns from the south conquered the small city and dispersed most of the Pasan inhabitants. The Ceiolaian Empire in turn conquered Glen and absorbed it into its vast realm. Much later, when the Second Empire began to grow, Glen had become a large and substantial state of its own, and it managed to fend off the Imperial Armies for four hundred years. Glen prospered during this time and began its experimentation with plying the open seas in sailboats and galleys.
In Pre-Columbian times, most Bergonians were sufficiently apprehensive of the sea that they never launched ships, even for trade. The only exception to this was the Svegon people of the Sargaso islands and the people of the city of Glen. It is no wonder that by the year 1200 the state of Glenrec had virtually dominated the entire coastal trade. The Portuguese took control of Glen after the plagues ravaged the native population. In the 1800's Glen was the second largest homeport for Bergonia's whaling fleet, which was substantial. The combination of excellent harbor, ancient sea-faring tradition, and transportation links with the interior allowed Glen to become the largest port of all Bergonia. Glen is also a huge railroad town. It is for this reason that Glen was designated the headquarters of Atraco, the major import-export company chartered by Congress. Atraco runs a commodities market for Bergonian exports, and makes deals for mass purchase of foreign commodities for the benefit of Bergonian manufacturing coops. People call Glen "Bergonia’s Front Door." It is said that, as long as there is trade in the world, Glen will prosper.
The name of this city probably descended from a very ancient Pasan name, since the Pasans were once the predominant people of the area, but nothing is really known. However, never being discouraged by the absence of facts, Bergonians will quickly supply a fanciful explanation. Thus, "Glen" is commonly understood to mean "warm spring rain" which Halemarec dependably receives. It is no surprise that Glenrecis-- as the people there are called (Glenreci, sing.)-- celebrate their annual festival in the spring, even when it rains.
Glen is a happy city. The people in medieval times were known for their love of bright colors, and travelers were always impressed with the loudly colorful ways in which the Glenrecis painted their stucco homes, often with bright fantastic murals of animals and gods. In our time the selection of exterior paint is more subdued, but everyone in Bergonia recognizes that the Halemarec style is a style embracing lavish loud hues.
Located in Glen is the Balar Pavilion, built in the 1200s, one of the finest examples of Tanic architecture. The Balar is now a museum, but for centuries housed a market. The Balar has multiple levels inside, with an intricate system of balconies and windows, looking both inside and out. All the windows and doorways are arching, and every flat surface is covered with brilliant frescoes of scenes showing the Shufrantei Gods.
Also located in Glen is the Huledrone Opera House, built in 1834 in an ancient Bergonian architectural style, specifically the baroque style perfected in Glen during the Imperial Era (300-600 AD). The Huledrone stands at the center of the large and important theater district.
Canete
Canete is the second largest city in Halemarec with 1,700,000 people, one half of whom speak Portuguese. Two out of every three Portuguese speakers in Halemarec are residents of Canete. Next to Barcelos, in the state of Bunamota, it is the largest Portuguese speaking community in Bergonia. Canete is home to the esteemed Bibliotheca Portuguese. Parts of the city are very modern and reconstructed, since it saw some of the bloodiest fighting between rival revolutionary groups during the 1930's. Italso saw some of the worst fighting of the ethnic wars in the 1830s. But the center of the city still boasts many buildings of colonial vintage. Every street in the center is pleasantly lined with trees, and has a reputation for its azaleas, grace and style, and also of computer and microchip manufacturing. A fine old Portuguese cathedral still dominates the central city. Canete hosts Latin American political refugees, disparate foreign poets, Portuguese sailors and Italian merchants, and the occasional fugitive from foreign justice. Even Hemingway spent time in the cafes of this city of strangers.
The Towns and Villages of Halemarec
In addition to Glen and Canete, Halemarec has seven other large cities, all of more than 100,000 residents. The eight cities together have a combined population of 8,700,000. The remaining 5,700,000 live in small cities, villages and farms towns-- Lunras. Halemarec is crowded with small lunra villages, populated fruits. In the higher elevations of the ranges near the lesre borders wheat is grown.
Distribution of the Population of Halemarec
4,900,000 -- Population of Glen
1,700,000 -- Population of Canete
2,100,000 -- Population of seven cities of 150,000-400,000 people each.
1,000,000 -- Population of twelve cities with an average population of 86,000 each.
4,700,000 -- Population of 364 communes, average population of 13,000 each.
14,400,000 -- Total population of Halemarec
Characteristics of the 364 Rural Communes
Each of these have an average land area of 82 square miles.
About a third (av. 4,000) of the population live in a central town, including artisans, business people, and teachers. The central town hosts the commune's market, the small factory, and all the produce and processing facilities. The main temple and church, the high school and the government building are in the central town.
The rest of the commune consists of anywhere from three to ten small villages clustered around the central town. None of these settlements include more than 3,000 people and the average size is about a thousand. The people in the villages are the peasants who walk or drive from the villages into the fields every morning at dawn. Though most country people live together in villages, as in most parts of the world, there are always a few individualistic outliers.
The majority of the present population is Minidun, with a large English-speaking minority. Midway is still the main town on Bruntaigo, where almost half the people live. At the city center are a number of excellently preserved brick homes and buildings from colonial times. Sometime things don't change much with time; Midway even now hosts one of the Bergonian Navy's largest bases.
The coastal plains are largely given over to orchards and farms. The climate is one of the most Mediterranean-type climates in Bergonia with very limited winter rain. In the rolling hills of the interior wheat is grown and cattle are grazed.
Little Bruntaigo generally has a multiparty complexion, splitting its vote between the National Democrats and the SFP.
Bunamota thus has an extremely long
coastline relative to its total area, so it is not surprising that fishing and shrimping, copious seafood, wide lazy low-surf beaches, coastal palms, marshes and mangroves, all constitute a big part of this lesre's personality.Bunamota also has more
Portuguese language and influence than any other region in Bergonia.Putilon
The ancient state of Putilon included the broad flat bowl where the Escondi River and its tributaries flow east into the Sargaso. This flat, well-drained plain of dark soil is one of the nation's most productive region for corn. This plain has since ancient times been called Putilon, and Putilon became the name of an independent political state that occupied the plane from the time of the break-up of the Second Ceiolaian Empire in the coming of the Europeans. This bounteous plain of Putilon comprises approximately 70% of Bunamota's total area.
On the coast of Putilon, on the shores of Verivikun, lies
the City of Barcelos, a city of 1.4 million. As its Portuguese name implies, Barcelos had no Pre-Columbian history. The very first Spanish navigators selected it as a port, but the Portuguese took it over, and ever since it has remained the center of Bergonian Portuguese culture. But now a bare majority of Barcelos's population speaks Minidun, yet Barcelos is headquarters of the nation's Portuguese media, specifically "Mundo Portugues." This city has a pretty colonial old town on the harbor, but Barcelos is also an industrial center, specializing in aluminum manufacture and electronics.Putilon otherwise is one of the two cradles of Bergonian civilization (the other being Clacupo and the Cuanita Valley in the west). The ruins and remains of the earliest cities have been excavated along the banks of the Escondi and its tributaries. These were the cities of the Kuan civilization, originating around 2000 B.C. The best preserved of these ruins, and also very large, is Sherge, one of several old Imperial cities. This city may not have been home to more than 30,000 people, but its remains include that of a large spacious, geometrically laid-out palace and an exquisite temple, both with largely intact marble walls. These remains are open to tourism. Other ruins exist in varying degrees of preservation. New archaeological finds occur yearly. Even children sometimes enjoy the luck of coming across an ancient pottery shard or stone tool.
The Nanamaniti Peninsula
Bunamota includes a foot-shaped peninsula called Nanamaniti that protrudes into the Sargaso. The "ankle" of the peninsula is flat depressed land, giving way to swamp and bayou. However, the actual "foot" has at its center an upland with an altitude high of 250 feet above sea level. Even here, around the coast of the foot, particularly around the "heel' and the "ball" are deep soggy swamps and heavy mangrove forests, but in the middle of the island are sand deserts, grasslands and pine forests. Overland transportation throughout much of Nanamaniti was very difficult until modern times when causeways and elevated roads were built. The foot forms a shallow calm bay called Verivikun, which is happily abundant with shellfish.
At the heel of Nanamaniti lies on a long skinny island paralleling the coast, called Salvador, and here is the city of
Espirito Santo. The Portuguese founded this city in 1522, and it still offers many fine examples of colonial architecture, although much has been lost over the years because of the corrosive salt air and the destruction wrought by subsidence. Now Espirito Santo is also home to the Commonwealth's Spaceport, called Icarus with a touch of cautionary irony. From here Bergonia launches its rockets at the stars. The Spaceport occupies a much smaller area than Canaveral, but one of its major features is a long, long runway inland from the coast where Bergonia's space shuttle lands. Recently the government allowed the construction of four large hotels near the runway with large glass enclosed galleries where visitors can watch landings.On the northwest side of the "foot" toward the upper side of the toes is the city of Lilian, situated on a collection of low hills next to a fine natural harbor. This city holds 2.1 million people. Like Espirito Santo, Lilian has a past rooted with the Portuguese colonization. Lilian existed in the Pre-Columbian era, but only as a small fishing & trading town of no political and little economic importance. It is a modern Bergonian city, with relatively few ancient buildings, and home to the nation's aeronautics industry. Nanamaniti has limited fresh water resources, so Lilian cannot grow any further, and the government there has occasionally ordered some form of water rationing during droughts. The city has sponsored two major reforestation programs for the remainder of the Nanamaniti in the last 80 years, in order to increase the amount of water in the soil. The city has the nation's largest desalinization water project, and is also experimenting with rain collection ddevices.
The island of Calaigo
Calaigo is a long skinny island north of Halitrat, rather removed from the rest of the state, a pretty place of rolling, sandy hills, with pine and oak groves scattered across grasslands and covering the few high hills running down the island's middle. Calaigo was first settled by the Svegon people in ancient times, then by the settlers from Glen in medieval times, then by the Portuguese in colonial times, and all three groups cohabit there now, each in its own county. Once the populations were rather intermingled throughout the island, but during the sectarian violence that swept Bergonia in the 1830s, these three ethnic groups went after one another, and finally the Army had to occupy the entire island in 1839. The current territorial division of the island into distinct ethnically homogenous counties is a legacy of the ethnic separation that occurred in that evil time. Fortunately Calaigo is now a sleepy bucolic corner of the country, with orchards, cornfields and cow pasture. The Harmony Party has tended to dominate island politics in recent years, as attention has focused on environmental issues of island-wide concern, common to all three ethnic communities. Now all three communities have joined in a plan to consolidate the population and create new Wilderlands. Their joint environmental plan parallels a plan for tourism and other economic development. These separate ethnic communities have never gotten along as well as they do now.
The capital and largest city is
Kai-Tanla situated on the shores of Harne at the place where the Hrevatitat begins its flow toward the sea. Kai Tanla has 1,433,000 people. It is noted for distinctive stone architecture. Medieval, colonial and modern buildings are all of the same dark granite that comes from the nearby quarries. This city has also been famous for its hot springs, and in the old spa district, situated in the low hills three miles away from the city's lakeshore center, there are no less than twelve separate hot springs.The second largest city is
Ichedlan, located up in the dry hills, covered by oak forests, where a fabulous breeze blows. The oak leaf is Ichedlan's symbol. Ichedlan has been noted for its fine glass and glassware since medieval times. In keeping with economic development policy, the post-revolutionary government has promoted the location of the modern glass industry in Ichedlan. The general policy requires that a city's industrial development should whenever possible mirror its traditional economy.The Latans
In the northwest corner of Sacamota, among the Spichelamo's steep-sloped ridges, is a little region called Latano. Here live the Latan, a Minidun people who paint their faces, play the mandolin, dance insanely, tend to believe in ancient Hiestat religion rather than Miradi or Christianity, and have in recent centuries adopted a passionate love of
field hockey. Bergonian teams always compete well in international field hockey competitions, and fully one half of the national champions in the last 50 years have been Latans. They are inclined to good-natured drunkenness, even the women, with a great fondness for the strong corn mash liquor they make. They were once despised and reviled by the majority of Amota Miniduns. Their dialect is distinctly their own, and hardly intelligible to other Minidun speakers. Linguists believe that their dialects is a remnant of the dialect that predominated in Amota in ancient times. They have a distinctive flag, consisting of a yellow rooster silhouette against a purple field. There are only 180,000 Latans.
In the small coastal city of Cuista is an old arcade building built in 400 A.D. in the classical style of the second Ceiolaian style, immaculately preserved. It is laid out in a rectangular style and encloses a long wide hallway down the middle, with large stall-type rooms adjoining. Two big high doorways open from the outside onto either end of the hallway. The public entered through these doorways and did their shopping along the hallway. The individual merchants occupied the stalls and used them for storage and display of their goods. There are windows all around to insure both ventilation and light. The arcade is constructed entirely of marble and its interior walls display beautifully preserved tile mosaics.
The capital of Saldeia is the twin city of Mragatai, also called
Mragatai-Gibson. The older, larger city is Mragatai proper, continuously inhabited for three thousand years, and still a glorious mess of twisting allies, plazas, courtyards and apartment buildings, with tea houses and cafes everywhere. The great Kuan Empire was based here, although no good ruins remain. After 200 BC Mragatai became the chief city of all southeastern Bergonia and remained so until the time of the plagues. The newer, more modern city is called Gibson, named for one of the early British colonial governors who founded it, Colonel Patrick Gibson who previously fought the war against the French for control of central Bergonia. The British and the Portuguese signed a treaty in the 1600's partitioning Amota, and the current border of Salienta and Dhentamina basically follows that treaty line, with Salienta lying on the Spanish side of the line. Nevertheless, the English settlers crossed that line and set up this small settlement. After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1763, when Spain lost all its Bergonian possessions to the English, the English endeavored to build a big manufacturing center for the wood industry they envisioned. Britain coveted the wood resources in the mountains of southeastern Bergonia, and British industrialists wanted to build mills to cut the wood in preparation for export. As a result, the city of Gibson is center to a thriving wood product industry, including paper. Mragatai-Gibson is now one huge city, very progressive and industrial. Before the Greening, Mragatai was famous for its horrible air pollution.
As reflected on its flag, this state is divided traditionally and sentimentally into three regions:
(a) Dzeruge, upriver, a region of high hills and oak forests, borders Rarsecin and so has always been traditionally linked with Ceiolai. Dzeruge's main city is Stransca, with its famous Plaza of Pillars.
(b) Nshuvale, the middle region, the capital city is Mraplecha. A region know for its marble and other stone quarries.
(c) Vortron, most down river, where valleys between the mountains broaden. Here one finds plenty of good farmland, including the twin cities of Ligsa and Arteton, both very ancient. Arteton is right on the border with the neighboring state of Bunamota, which, unlike Sansan, has a considerable minority of Portuguese. The ancient Inland Road, the major north-south highway in Pre-Columbian times, passed through Arteton. There are also numerous mountain ranges in this region, with plenty of dense cloud forests, notable for the heavy-scented hyacinth-like
petluma flower.The capital is a fine old city called Ligsa, with an abundance of buildings of white marble, also the location of a splendid sight called the Hanging Gardens. The Emperors of the Second Ceiolaian Empire built the hanging gardens into the side of the hill that overlooks Ligsa and the the Escondi valley. The gardens consist of several terraces on which are planted many different kinds of beautiful flowers. Through the garden is a series of waterfalls and small reflecting pools fed by aqueducts, including an aqueduct 38 miles long bringing water from the mountains. As the Second Empire fell apart and Ceiolaian power receded, the gardens and the aqueduct system fell into disrepair. In the 800s the local Tieri managed to re-establish the gardens with the aid of a coalition of clans and religious orders. Over the centuries there were ups and downs. In 1138, when armies from neighboring Putilon invaded Ligsa, the gardens were utterly destroyed. The site lay deserted for almost a hundred years, and then another local Tieri begin a modest restoration which continued over many decades. By the time the Europeans arrived, the gardens were spectacular. But then the years of the plagues and diseases reduced the gardens to nothing. However, in the 1800s the local government begin another restoration and now the gardens are one of the most beautiful sites in Bergonia. It extends over 1,348 acres and functions as a total botanical garden.
The state, especially the people of
the island of Cloya, are excited, because the Aeronautics & Space Council has approved the construction of a new spaceport there, the nation's second, since the port at Espirito Santo has outgrown its limited acreage. The new spaceport would be part of an ambitious expansion of the entire space program. Congress, however, has yet to approve the spending, and there is by no means any agreement about the expensive proposal.The policy of the state of Sargaso is to devolve as much authority to each of the islands, each constituted as a county, as possible, since by necessity it seems each island much have its own economy. Indeed each island does have its own rather unique profile; some are tourist havens, some depend primarily on fishing, some on of-shore oil production, some on growing pineapples and other tropical fruit. Each island as well has its own demographic profile-- some islands are dominated by Portuguese, some by Minidun, a few by Fishlin speakers, but most islands are shared by some combination of the these three groups.
The state government sponsors its own airline and long-distance water-bus system.