Forum:Territory application/UL28a - Kingdom of Bijeloslavia

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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

UL28A - Kingdom of Bijeloslavia

	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)

The country's physical geography will mirror that of the western hemisphere of the Balkan peninsula - the coastline of the country shall have small bays flanked by rocky masses, with only small parts of the coastline available for any real infrastructural development due to the hilliness of the terrain. These coastline-lining hills will form a mountain range that sweeps across the northern seaboard of the nation.

Further south, the land will be largely forested, with a mixture of rolling fertile plains and thick forest.

The country's climate will have a large amount of variety - winters shall be cold and wet, with lows in the double-digit negatives. Summers are hot and dry, with dry spells stretching for much of the summer months, putting a strain on the supply of natural water sources.

A number of rivers run through the country, the largest of which being the one upon which the capital city sits.

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

The population is largely homogenous, with Bijeloslavians making up over 95% of the total number. The remainder are a mixture of foreign ethnic groups - many of whom have stubbornly refused to assimilate and give up their native cultures and ways.

The north of the nation relies on tourism and leisure during the summer months, as well as fishing along the coastline year-round. The north is populated by small to medium-sized towns which are based across the coastline. The majority of these towns date back to medieval times, and have been fishing ports since their establishments. The towns are linked by a coastline highway, one of the country's busiest, which relies on toll roads in the summer months to fund maintenance, as the hugely-variable weather conditions are detrimental to the roads condition.

The rest of the nation is largely rural, and relies on agricultural and manufacturing, amongst other things. In the far south of the nation - historically the poorest region - subsistence farming is the way of life for many, and life hasn't changed all that much since pre-industrial days.

In terms of mapping style, the layout of towns and cities will be largely spontaneous, drawing on the asymmetrical, unplanned layouts seen in cities such as Zagreb, Split, and other former-Yugoslav nations, which saw huge unregulated expansion in the mid-20th century.

Though the nation's economic situation is improving, a lack of willingness to move on from traditions, for better or worse, leaves many on the poverty threshold, particularly in the nation's southern region. The tourism boom has created thousands of extra jobs in the north of the nation, but it comes at a cost - overtourism has resulted in price rises of a large number of products, as well as environmental issues, which leaves many locals doubting whether or not the nation's economy should be reshapes around tourism or not.

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

The history of the Bijeloslavian nation dates back to 752 AD, when nomadic tribes venturing eastwards chose to settle the land. The main reasons for this are said to have been the abundance of fertile land, which birthed the nation's tradition of an agriculturally-oriented economy.

The nations culture and traditions have remained largely unchanged since the nation's humble beginnings. The culture is typically Slavic, and almost overwhelmingly (>93%) Christian. Family and patriarchy play a huge part in the day-to-day life of the Bijeloslavian people, whose culture is also heavily influenced by the nomadic nature of its founders.

The Bijeloslavian language is, essentially, modern-day Croatian, with a few minor vocabulary differences. However, the grammar, sentence structure, et cetera all remain the same.

	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.

https://opengeofiction.net/#map=14/-12.4029/170.7616&layers=B - a little project I worked on for a few days, which is on hiatus until I return from holiday. As you can see, it is nowhere near complete, but I hope you can see my vision in it.

https://opengeofiction.net/#map=16/-52.1105/-140.9123&layers=B - Another small town I worked on for a while.

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

vjekoslav95 - 26/6/2023 Vjekoslav95 (talk) 09:09, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

	Discussion
	Discussion for clarification & decision

Dear Vjekoslav95, thank you for your application. A few comments:

the mapping you've done so far is very nice, especially for a beginner! Before granting a private territory I'd ask you to also map some natural and more large-scale features (like forests, mountains, rivers, coasts etc.).
the scaling of your detailed mapping and buildings is a little off, but that comes with practice; perhaps compare your mapping to some real-world mapping using the Scale helper.
please refrain from using real world names, especially brand names, and replace them as soon as possible. We do not want to violate copyright laws.
please provide a sketch of your plans for the territory. Check out Help:Making realistic countries.
have a look at the geography of your future potential neighbours and how to incorporate that into your plans; note how in the south there would likely need to be a more mountaineous region, with the northern shoreline of your neighbours being pretty flat at the moment. Try to either adapt to that or draft a convincing and reaslistic solution/transition into your territory.
Also have a look at OpenGeofiction:East Uletha and relate your plan (especially language/culture, history and climate) to that meta-plan. You can deviate from that meta-plan (for example there currently is no Balkan or Croatia-equivalent), but try to show how your country's history regarding language migration and history could fit into this existing framework.

Looking forward to your work over the next couple of weeks. Kind regards, Leowezy (talk) 09:02, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Leowezy,

Firstly, I appreciate your quick response.

I'll be continuing on the island that I was previously working on in the coming days, mainly on the natural features of it. You can see that I had begun to take such aspects into consideration and developed them to some extent already, but I hadn't yet had the chance to expand this to the entire island.
When I get back to my PC later today I'll be setting JOSM up - I'd been using iD up until this point - and I believe this will partly help with the scale issue. I will however look over the scale helper.
I'll also take care of the brand names used, I was under the impression that they were usable as they appeared built-in to the iD editor, but this obviously isn't the case - I'll go through and switch them all.
I'll sketch out my plan when I get back to my PC, absolutely no problem there.
For the last two points, I absolutely will do as you've recommended and edit my plan accordingly. Does this mean I can't built a Balkan-themed nation? Or does it just mean I have to go into detail about how they got there, a possible Germanic presence in past, etc. I'd be interested to know, and writing history is quite enjoyable regardless. If not, as you can see with the island, I have mapped in German before, so it's not that big of an issue, it's just that I'd appreciate mapping something a little more familiar.

I'll also edit my plan for the geography of the country according to the meta-plan.

I appreciate your swift response once again and can't wait to hear back.

Vjekoslav95 (talk) 09:48, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Dear Vjekoslav95,

thank you for your reply as well, I am looking forward to your edits and updates to the application.

To reply to the question you specifically stated: I am not sure if there already is a pure alter-balkan on the OGF planet (and I am also not familiar with the RW Balkan either). There are several areas in West Uletha where I feel like it could fit, and in East Uletha sectors UL18 and UL20 are also close to or part of slavic influence. But I'll ask the West Uletha Admins to chip in on that. That being said, our planet has a much more "jolted" langauge distribution than Earth anyway, which we try to accomodate by various historic stunts. You could find a good way to explain the presence of a Croatian-inspired language in this otherwise indeed quite Germanic region and embedd it into this surrounding. Language migration from sector UL20 to UL28a could have happened for example, with the slavic influence being stronger in the north and the south retaining more Germanic place names etc. (just one idea of many to show you what's possible).

Cheers, Leowezy (talk) 14:15, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Dear Leowezy,

I do in fact like the idea of a migration of the original tribe, but I was thinking a migration from around UL18ad - a taiga area with infertile land, which already borders an existing Slavic nation, Drabantsko - would make a little more sense. Perhaps something along the lines of a particularly harsh few winters killing many, and leading the surviving tribesmen south in search of warm, fertile lands on which to settle. This would probably be more in line with the origins of pre-civilisation tribes from the Ural mountains, but I'm not certain.

In fact, thinking about it now, it seems as though UL15l and UL15d are both based on Croatia - perhaps an internal event could have led the Bijeloslavians to leave. Maliorska has a very rich history (https://wiki.opengeofiction.net/index.php/Mallyore), and, if they're still active, I believe including them in the discussion as to how Bijeloslavia formed would be very productive. My thinking is that, following the overthrow of Mutimir in 861 (see the "Principality of Črešnja" page on their wiki), the followers of Mutimir were exiled, and eventually found their way to UL28a - the finer details can be established later. Perhaps the land was already inhabited by a number of smaller Germanic kingdoms, and a gradual takeover of these kingdoms was funded by Mutimir and his followers - specifically noblemen and men of power who had been exiled alongside him - similar to the British takeover of India; essentially buying sides in proxy wars and taking land to pay off these favours.

All this can be decided upon, but I'd very much like to the owner of Maliorska on this one, to decide the beginnings and backstory of (hopefully) my own nation.

Thanks again,

Vjekoslav95 (talk) 11:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

	Territory application closed
	User applied for a different territory. Leowezy (talk) 14:45, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
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