Forum:Territory application/AR120-35 - Passitania

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

AR120-35 - Passitania

	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)

https://imgur.com/a/3hQ27oM

Passitania will have a similar geography to the US states of Kentucky and Tennessee. Looking at the application for AR120-08, which is to be similar to Appalachia, it would put those states right there when superimposed over the US and considering the mountains in the east. In the far east of the state, with some collaboration with the AR120-08 owner, there will be a large mountain range with several valleys, potentially some rivers crossing state borders in that area. Westwards to around Madawan, the topography will be largely mountainous, with a potential valley along the current FS-2X corridor (Likely to be the continuation of FS-22) and where the river in that area winds through. These mountains will not be as tall as the mountains in the far east, but still somewhat tall, similar to the mountains near Knoxville, TN. In the center, the topography will largely be rolling hills flattening out towards the south and west, with intermittent forests particularly towards the east near Madawan. In the northwest, looking at the topography of Gnaerey, some smaller mountains will rise up, although it will be the shortest of the mountains in Passitania.

In the far eastern mountains, climate there will be much colder than the rest of Passitania (Dfb/Dwb). Frequent snowstorms in the winter and rainstorms in the spring would sweep in from the south and, due to the high elevation, would be subject to orographic lift, feeding the rivers in that area. This seasonal rain would feed large evergreen forests and also put areas downstream from these mountains prone to flooding, while in the summer and fall, moderate droughts may lead to potential wildfires (Similar to the Smoky Mountains, TN/NC).

In the western plains and hills, onshore winds from the lakes to the southwest would feed the region lots of rain year-round, with an occasional snow or ice storm once every couple winters. Moving north or eastward in this region, the climate gets drier and colder. Madawan will likely still be a Cwb/Cfb climate with seasonal droughts and winter storms around once every winter. The central-eastern mountains will mainly be a transition zone between Dwb and Cwb, continuing the trend of lessening rain and increasing cold as you go east. Present-day lakes in that area will be fed by snow and rain from the eastern plateau.

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

https://imgur.com/a/nGoWdkJ

(All population estimates are for the metropolitan area)

Madawan will be similar to other south-central US cities (similar to Lexington, KY or Nashville, TN). A large metropolitan area with several suburbs hindered mainly just by the topography of the area. St. Brookings will be located just upstream of Madawan, serving almost as a twin city for Madawan (similar to Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC). These cities will have a large trade culture, being located at the confluence of many of the major rivers in Passitania, and canals have made this the highest navigable point on the rivers. A major inland port of the Federated States will be located in Madawan, manufacturing and exporting many raw materials coming from the rural areas of Passitania.

In the far north, the city of Willowbrook will join the Lake City metro area, potentially becoming the most major city in that region. Large ski slopes will descend the mountains south of Willowbrook, and the city will largely serve as a transition point between the cities in the region and the ski slopes of the eastern mountains. On the eastern side of Willowbrook, many mineshafts will be present there, and the city will also serve as a transition point for the raw materials from the mines to either be processed there and transported to Madawan or transported to the ports and processed onsite.

In the far east, the wooded plateaus will be major for the timber industry, and several small towns along the proposed route of FS-28 will have been brought up as timber, mining, and railroad towns. Economic development in this region will be far more depressed than the major cities in Passitania, as income is largely dependent on the climate, with a dry or even wildfire season causing major economic downturn for these cities' economies. The Onawanda Lake is also dependent on the weather, as the water level of the lake impacts the amount of tourism that the area receives. The eastern panhandle may become a national park or protected wooded hunting lands with the heavy woods and mountains providing the perfect natural scenery, potentially with several waterfalls along the rocky ridges.

Onawanda and Sorensby are also areas focused around fishing, as the still waters are the perfect location for fish to swim to spawn. Sorensby in particular is a perfect area for this, being at the confluence of three major rivers in Passitania.

Farther west, the city of Catterick will be similar to towns such as Memphis, TN or Saint Louis, MO. It will be located along a large river and be the second-largest metropolitan area in Passitania, behind Madawan. A rich country music culture will have taken root here and spread to nearby areas due to Catterick's large position in the region. The Passitania Raceway will also be a major draw of the city, being the largest racetrack in the region, and many from the state and region will flock to the raceway during an event. With the sports betting culture being popular, a few casinos also are located in the Catterick area, leading to a large level of wealth inequality in the region.

In the center of Passitania, most of the flatlands and low rolling hills will be agricultural and timberlands, with Spotswood being the only city of any substance (similar to cities such as Indianapolis, IN or Dayton, OH). Corn, soybeans, and wheat will be the main crops of the region with cattle grazing also being a popular land use in the region. More forested areas may be protected gamelands for hunting season.

The Madawan and Catterick areas will be heavily urbanized, especially in the city center, with suburbia sprawling outwards. Suburbia in Madawan will mainly skew westwards, away from the mountains, whereas Catterick will sprawl in every direction due to the abundance of flat land in the area. The mid-sized cities of Grundy and Willowbrook will have much smaller city centers, and most of the suburbs will be hindered greatly by the terrain as they are both located within valleys. Spotswood, a similarly sized city, will be a very spread out metropolitan area, with farmlands and forests interposing developed areas. Finally, Sorensby and Onawanda Lake will be very small urban areas, with most development being small towns contributing to the total metro population. Areas along motorways between large cities will feature several small towns and hamlets, especially in the Rabana Valey (similar to I-81 in the Shenandoah Valley, VA/WV/MD/PA). Isolated rural towns will also be present in almost every corner of Passitania with farming towns in the southwest, timber towns in the north and center, and mining towns in the east.

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

As the FSA explored the Grand Lakes in the south-center of the country and integrated them into their borders, Madawan began growing as a halfway point between the lakes and Huntington, serving as a midway point for travelers to rest on the multi-day trip. Slowly, development began growing around the confluence of the rivers and a rich trade culture developed in the north. When Passitania was created as a state out of the Michisaukee Territory, land along the south began being developed. When a large oil reserve was found near present-day Catterick, many rich oil companies and their owners moved to the land, leading to the creation of casinos and the Passitania Raceway. Due to the mountains near Madawan, areas west of Madawan are much more culturally tied to Wauseka and Gnaerey, whereas areas east of Madawan are culturally closer to AR120-08 and Michisaukee. Ingerish is the primary language spoken here and Archantan will be the primary culture, however several minorities will be present within the larger cities and few college towns strewn throughout the rural areas.

	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=10/10.9376/-110.9295

Here is the beginner territory of Havenshire that I have been working on for around six months now. I am planning on adding several more rural areas as proof of my ability to map rurally, however I also live in a rural area in the United States so that mapping style is very natural to me. The city mapping here was the more difficult part, and I attempted to break up the grids more. Union City in particular has a grid near the center, but I attempted to break it up with the suburbs. The scale in this territory is denser than I would like Passitania to be, but that is because the beginner territory was not large enough to accommodate diverse landscapes.

https://opengeofiction.net/#map=11/-7.1574/169.5439

Initially, I started mapping in Bolstable, especially in areas to the north (places such as Charlottetown, Moonview City, the Spotswood Parkway, and the Victory Freeway) prior to my mapping in Havenshire. This was much too expansive of a grid, but the rural areas here are skills I would like to port over to the territory of Passitania.

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

PoisonDog522 (talk) 15:26, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

	Discussion
	Discussion for clarification & decision

• This is me moving my territory application from AR120-08 to AR120-35 as that territory is under review. —Unsigned comment by PoisonDog522 (talk).

Hello! Thank you for the application. There is a lot to like in the application, and it is nice to see this state get some attention. There are a few very important things to discuss first to ensure that your application fits in with the little bit that is known about the region and the surrounding regions.

• Thank you for recognizing the importance of Madawan and that it may well be the last navigable place upstream in that area. For full disclosure, the name can change if you so see fit. What is unclear is the population of the city and its metro area? It would likely be a major city, so it would be great to know this figure (I might have missed it but cannot seem to find it).
• Relatedly, the location of St. Brookings is only a mere 10 miles from Madawan, and Grundy is a mere 25 miles. This means that really Madawan is the principal city, and the population figures would need to be adjusted. This does not mean that St. Brookings wouldn't be a major suburb or second notable city in the metro… but it is quite close and would be economically dependent and developmentally absorbed by the Madawan area. Grundy could operate something like Gallatin, TN does to Nashville, but its population figure strikes as too high also. Basically, I'm asking you to consider shifting the population center back toward Madawan. If the entire Madawan metro were about 1.5M in population (including St. Brookings and Grundy with Madawan as the principal city), that's entirely believable and realistic. Still, the hub of the metro would focus elsewhere than those to cities. St. Brookings could still have 100k or so in population alone, but it would be a second city in the metro and notably behind the more economically dominant Madawan.
• I am going to outright say that Catterick would need to relocate to the western river, where FS-30 crosses or thereabouts. This would be a prime location for a major city. That river (yet unnamed) is the prime navigable waterway from the southern passes to the Alormen River. It would have been both a major settlement route from the southeast to the Alormen Valley and a major shipping area with lock–dam structures on the river. Catterick in that location would be a prime spot for development. Cataukee isn't a major city (think Dayton in relation to Cincinnati), and settlement patterns would have dictated a migration route to that river instead of somewhere internal. Cautaukee could easily fit in as a secondary city in the major metro anchored on your side of the river or move Catterick even slightly north a touch to provide distance. FS-51 can be relocated to your side of the river anywhere from Cautaukee northward. The spacing with other notable major cities in the region would be absolutely perfect. A metro of 1M right on the river would easily be analogous to Louisville or Memphis in historic, economic, and transportation importance. Furthermore, moving Catterick removes the clustering in your state's interior of cities that would be too close together to develop like that. It gives Spotswood room to breathe. Speaking of which, Indianapolis is too big of an inspiration for Spotswood. Lexington, KY would be far more appropriate.
• Speaking of motorways, FS-22 would best be served to go right to Madawan instead of branching off into the rural interior. The Madawan–Stanton corridor would be a major historical byway in its own right. Spur routes can be used otherwise. The Onawanda cities should probably be right on that FS-22 corridor between Madawan and Stanton, also.
• A few notes about natural features: the hydrology doesn't match up much with Gnaerey in the central and western parts of your diagram, so that will need to be worked out a bit. I also caution against "mountains" in the west. More rugged plateau hills like around Elizabethtown or Bowling Green, KY are assuredly fine. Just be sure that the heights are not overplayed, or it will impact the regional climate.
• Speaking of climate, yes there would be some lake-enhanced weather patterns in the winter, but keep in mind that we're in the southern hemisphere in the Federal States. So, flip the weather pattern maps for the US on a horizontal axis.

That is all I have as feedback. I'm happy to talk in PMs or things like that if you have further questions. Things look pretty good with this, so hopefully these minor issues could be ironed out. Cheers, — Alessa _(talk) 19:11, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Alessa,

Thank you for your feedback, especially on that which I neglected to think about beforehand.

• I definitely agree with Madawan being the principal city of the metro, I just forgot to put the population estimate underneath it. I would be more than happy to incorporate St. Brookings and Grundy into the total population of the Madawan metro and to have those two serve as populous suburbs. The total urban population would likely be around 1.5 million, with roughly 1 million of that being in Madawan, 100k in St. Brookings, ~75k in Grundy, and the remaining spread out among smaller suburbs.
• Moving Catterick farther west would definitely be a change I'm willing to make. I originally had planned for a river to run through the original placement of Catterick, but I'm happy to move it closer to Cataukee. I could also switch the names of the cities (potentially switch Catterick and Sorensby?) as the names Catterick and Cataukee are pretty close and I could see them easily being confused with one another. I think moving FS-51 onto the eastern side of the river to serve Catterick would make the most sense, although a spur route there such as FS-X51 and FS-30 also would be fine.
• I do now realize that Indianapolis was a way too large city for Spotswood, I was trying to think of cities in the US midwest not along the Great Lakes and my mind was drawing a complete blank so I just went with the only one I could think of. Lexington is the type of city I will go for in Spotswood.
• The driving factor between me having FS-22 continue throughout the entirety of AR120-35 is simply that 22 is my favorite number. I can definitely sacrifice that for a more believable motorway system.
• I'm willing to change the western mountains into larger hills. I want to have them a bit more distinct from the center, as it appears that section of Gnaerey is a bit more rugged than farther interior, but I do realize that mountains would affect the climate and topography of everything surrounding, especially on a state border.
• As the FSA and USA are both (primarily) between 30 and 60 degrees N/S, are the westerlies still the winds that would be primarily blowing? Additionally, for climateology, my main climate estimates were just to do with elevation, so any advice I could get on how that would interact with the lakes to the southwest and mountains in the east would be great.

Here is an updated motorway/city plan with the edits:

https://imgur.com/a/qCPwrXY

And here are the small changes in the natural features plan:

https://imgur.com/a/rIP6w1J

Thank you very much for your consideration, PoisonDog522 (talk) 19:53, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for getting to this. Things look much better. Regarding the name of Catterick: switching it with Sorensby would be fine. Onawanda might also be plausible as a switch. The routing of FS-51 in the western metro is something you can work out with your new neighbor. It probably should enter Gnaerey from your side of the river, however, instead of crossing over again. That would be an expensive build to have three bridges instead of crossing just once. As for the climate, your best analogy in the US is Kentucky, southern Ohio, and the western half of West Virginia. Your southern boundary would be more like Cincinnati and Marietta; your northern boundary would be more like London, KY and Paducah.

I have one last caution after looking over your previous mapping. Please be mindful not too have too much in the way of motorway sprawl in your state. I know the BG territory is much smaller, and things are condensed. But, in a state your size, it's also not as big as it might look initially. Sometimes scaling up can give the illusion that you have more space than you'd otherwise expect. For example, your western river city and Madawan are only 30km further apart than Nashville and Knoxville in Tennessee; those two cities are actually 30km closer together than Memphis and Nashville. My point is that you have a lot of space, but be careful not to overload it with expensive, high-capacity roads or overcharge the smaller metropolitan areas when they're in close proximity to your most important ones. I hope that makes sense.

I should mention, as an aside, that regionally, we can work out some long-range rail and motorway connections as nearby neighbors. Things like FS-45 running from Reeseport to Spotswood and points south (maybe New Rivador or something like that), and the long-planned FS-36 from Des Nonnes to Fort Constable and across toward your western city (it may not cross into your state, but it'll at least get to the metro area). We'll chat more and coordinate with other neighbors when you have your initial start up, if the application is approved.

Happy mapping. — Alessa _(talk) 16:07, 13 January 2025 (UTC) (Edited for clarity and an explanation. 16:12, 13 January 2025 (UTC))

For the Catterick name switch, I'll talk with the owner of Wauseka (if approved) about their thoughts on a name change, but since the Onawanda Lake is already named, Sorensby would probably be what I go with if I do switch.

For motorways:

• I can definitely cross FS-51 into Gnaerey on my side of the river, I just wasn't sure what the owner of Wauseka wanted with regards to that, but I'll definitely work with them around FS-51 and the Cautaukee-Catterick/Sorensby area quite a bit.
• For FS-45, I can replace the planned corridor north of Spotswood with a planned corridor there for FS-45, heading up towards Wallage and Oakfield in Gnaerey.
• I think FS-36 would work well going around the north of Catterick/Sorensby and then meeting up with FS-30 on the east side of the city, almost like a bypass of the city while FS-30 mainly goes through the city.
• I've definitely seen my motorway sprawl in Havenshire and wanted to do more to mitigate it, but it was just too large of a beast for me to tackle once I realized how bad it was (especially seeing how many urban motorways there were through the center of cities). I'll mitigate it in Passitania, looking at the cities in the Ohio River Valley have definitely helped me get a better idea of what those urban centers look like with regards to length, number, and density of motorways.

Thank you once again, and I'm looking forward to collaborating and coordinating with everyone nearby if approved.

PoisonDog522 (talk) 17:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

	Territory application approved
	Approved, subject to on-going discussion (e.g. on the FSA Discord) and consensus on issues is required, due to the collaborative nature of the Federal States. Thanks/wangi (talk) 17:18, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
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