Forum:Territory application/UL11i - Basterlan

Forums → Territory application → Territory application/UL11i - Basterlan

Please fill in the information below to make a territory request.

	Territory ID and proposed name
	The Territory ID (from OpenGeofiction:Territories, e.g. AR123a) and proposed name of the country

UL11i (currently known as Dartannia), to be called Basterlan, if I don’t come up with a better idea

	Physical geography
	An overview of climate, topography and landscape of the country. It is advised to also create a sketch, you can add a link to this (hosted on imgur or similar)

Climate similar to south-west England, Normandy, or Brittany. The territory is roughly L-shaped, with a small coast on the firth of Hetzer and a territory that extends southwards: I intend to make the southern part into a moor which would be about the size of real-world Dartmoor, or slightly less big, and increase slightly the area of the existing main bay to get more coastline. The area south of this bay will be divided roughly in half by a river extending horizontally and then turning south to find its source in the moors (the current shape of the border may also lend itself to another river or stream on part of it). The immediate north of this bay will be slightly flatter to allow for some small islands accessible at low tide, etc., but most of the north part of the territory would be quite hilly, with deep estuaries and tidal valleys extending inside the territory (partly inspired by the coast of Devon, partly by that of Brittany). The east of the territory, north of the part I plan to convert into moors, already has good countryside / farms mapping, which is obviously worth keeping and expanding.

	Human geography
	A brief description of the territory demographics, economic development, land occupation, infrastructure and mapping style

Relatively sparsely populated for its size, with one important but probably slightly old-fashioned seaside resort city, fishing villages scattered along the coast and in the agriculturally very productive interior, probably one village or two in the moors just to have something there, and, in the main bay near to (or combined with) the seaside town, an old port that was rich in the Middle Ages but hasn’t moved forward much since.

Economic development is an important question: either I do something that makes a lot of sense and have the territory’s economy and politics basically inspired by the Channel islands or the isle of Man (tourism and a lot of banking), very high-income; or I go more with the quaint countryside and small-scale tourism, with lots of farming, everything still very traditional and old-fashioned, and a lot less money — more fun, but makes a lot less sense, if the government of this country has any brains, they would not keep it poorer than the neighbours instead of going like Jersey or Ireland. The end product will probably be a mix of the two approaches.

	History & culture
	A brief description of the intended culture and language

A country this size should probably be and have been basically a city-state. Luckily, it is conveniently located in the shallow Firth of Hetzer, so it could have become rich by trading easily with all the countries around, up to the north of Uletha. They would probably have remained quite rich from trade and fishing (should the area be a good place for fishing? I’m not good enough at drawing realistic climate and currents maps to be sure) until the industrial revolution, because I would like it to have some 18th century architecture and urbanism in addition to the mediaeval/early modern stuff. Then it would have spent the 19th century as a fashionable seaside resort (tough I’m still trying to decide how: making it a gambling place like Monaco hardly fits the climate and culture, I suppose. Thermal sources and spa towns, maybe?). By now, its economy would probably be mostly tourism, with still good agriculture (rolling hills with a lot of rivers look like they should be rich agricultural land).

As to the language, either I map in French with some kind of backstory about people from Franqueterre having extended their reach up here at some point in time (not completely unlike what happened in the Channel islands), or I go with something weirder, like Breton (language of Britanny, which I don’t actually speak, but I guess there are good dictionaries). That might fit well with the Scot, British , and Welsh-inspired territories slightly further north, with other Celtic languages, but I might personally like it less. The territory just north of the one I’m applying for is Hungarian, the other one is, I guess, Dutch, and I don’t know at all either of those languages, which is a pity, as whatever I do will probably make slightly less sense if it’s in a completeley unrelated language to that of the neighbours. English would have made sense, but there’s probably too much of it already. Or I could give a try to Middle English (or more probably middle French, less familiar to english speakers, it would sound less odd), again if I can learn the basics.

The culture and politics will probably be some kind of very peaceful mildly conservative/agrarian/Catholic social doctrine, which would fit very well with the landscape and the rest, but seems prone to (in anything resembling real-life) breed close-minded very conservative dictatorships, which I’m not a fan of, so I’ll want to find a realistic way to avoid that. Ireland, for instance (and as far as I know…), managed to be divided mostly along other lines, with the two main parties both being sort of centre-right without too much culture wars and stuff, but I’ll probably need to find something other than English colonisation and war of independence for my territory to end up in a similar political situation. I also want to do something else, in terms of politics/culture, and that would be for the country to have retained a lot of feudal government institutions. But, because I’m personally very interested in the design of good government institutions to make rational decisions, I will try to include interesting ideas from political science research framed as ancient traditions, and I will have to find ways for it to make sense — shouldn’t be too difficult.

	Past mapping
	To support your request provide links to areas of OGF mapping which showcase your mapping skill. Mapping relevant to the requested theme & geography is especially useful
	The {{coord}} template can optionally be used to link to the OGF map - it results in a nice formatted link. Or you can paste in a URL.

I’m currently — well, not currently, as I have been extremely busy these last few months, but relatively currently — mapping Sudharka (TA097b) (its wiki page has it named Rincorque, but I haven’t yet added this new name on the map). It’s a territory that is similar in that it has about the same size, but in a more tropical climate, something I feel I never was really deeply interested in geographically and may be slowly getting bored of, which is why I want to request UL11i instead, as I would prefer a more European style of mapping.

	Username & date
	Sign and date the application by typing four tildes like this: ~~~~

Portier (talk) 17:14, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

	Territory application approved
	Good request, I like the idea of mapping in the Breton language. Dont forget to map on all scales --Stjur (talk) 19:43, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
	As you develop your territory, be sure to keep it realistic. Here are some resources you may find useful for starting out: Help:Portal, Help:Making realistic countries, Help:Making realistic cities and OpenGeofiction:Site policies