The Ardispheric Federation, (Castellanese La Federación Ardesférica; Gohangukian 화구연방 [hwa-gu-yeon-bang] (hanja 火球聯邦); Cambric Yr Ardesffêr), also called informally "The Ardisphere" (Castellanese "El Ardesfera"; Gohangukian "화국" [hwa-guk]; hanja "火國") is a nation located on the Gwynian subcontinent on the northern part of the continent of Archanta. Its capital and by far largest city is Villa Constitución, whose metropolitan area includes nearly half the country's population, while other major metropolitan areas with more than 100,000 inhabitants include (in descending order by size of population) Cerro y Casa and environs, Jeongto (정토시) along with the northern Marverde region, Comala and Utopía region, El Cabo, Dos Lagos and Ynys Dieithriaid (northern Lago Libertad region), Ciudad Trece Templos, Altazor, and Lagartópolis (Témisa تَمِسا).

Etymology

	7, -23.05, 123.55
Ardispheric Federation; Federación Ardesférica
Flag	Coat of arms
	Motto:; "Soberanía, Autonomía, Hermandad"; Sovereignty, Autonomy, Brotherhood
	Anthem:; Mi Ardesfera Querido (My Beloved Ardisphere)
Capital; and largest city	Villa Constitución, DF
Official languages	Castellanese
• National languages	Cambric, Gohangukian,
• Regional languages	Ingerish, Franquese, Altazorian, Bofobundan, Mahhalian, Karolian Románš, Vizcayan
Demonym	Ardispherian
Government	Federal Presidential Republic
• President	Montserrat Nowak de Chang
• Prime Minister	Eusebio Pérez
• Foreign Minister	Luciano Vías Memmegehha
Legislature	Federal Congress (Congreso Federal)
• Upper house	Senate (Senado)
• Lower house	Assembly (Asamblea)
HDI	0.85; very high
Currency	Ardispherian Peso Peso Ardesférico ($Ar) (PFA)
Drives on the	right
Internet TLD	.fa

There is no consensus on the origin of the name of the country. At some point, some native name or phrase heard by the first Castellanese colonists in the late 1500s or early 1600 was reinterpreted as "Arde-Esfera" (burns-sphere i.e. "burning sphere") - not really grammatical but somehow viewed as a reference to the common sun-themed iconography of many native Altazorian religious sites.

One suggestion that is popular among linguists is that in fact it was the Altazorian phrase "alde sifira" which means, roughly, "Don't come here," which may have been uttered by an Altazorian chieftan while gesturing at icons of their sun-god and protector. The early Castellanese would have assumed that the natives were pointing to the icons and giving a name, and the similarity between the sound of their phrase and something meaningful in the Castellanese language that matched the image they were seeing meant that the linguistic association became locked in. If this is in fact the origin of the name of the country, there is a great deal of irony that it became a country made up largely of immigrants. Nowadays, however, even the Altazorians call the country "Ardesfari" in their own language, and any semantic relation to a possible Altazorian linguistic origin is not something they are conscious of.

History

Main article: History of the Ardisphere

See also the list of National Historic Sites in the Ardisphere

Pre-Colonial Period

Ardisphere's pre-Colonial period can be clearly demarcated into 4 phases: 1) Paleolithic (before 600 AD); 2) the Tlön Civilization (600-1200); 3) the Albalonga and Buyambá Cultural Complex (1200-1400); and 4) the Altazorian Tributate (1400-1600).

In the paleolithic there were different groups and tribes settled throughtout the territory that is the modern country, obviously the lack of records makes it difficult to clarify how many different cultural and linguistic groups there were.

The reconstructed monumental plaza at Tlön, a city which flourished from 600 until 1200 AD. The site is just north of Cerro y Casa, DO, accessible to tourists via a CyC communter train and a short walk.

Based on later developments, the linguistic map for the pre-historic period can be divided into about three bands stretched horizontially across the country. The northernmost, overlapping with neighboring countries, were the Caruquian peoples (named for their modern descendents, called the Caruque, clustered in the Lower Yeonggwang Valley in the Colonia Coreana, formerly much more extended. The middle band were the Lonica peoples, of which the Tlön where the most notable members. To the south, including the Costa de Dragones and the Bahía Negra, were the various Albalongan peoples, which includes those who later became the Altazorians.

The Tlön Civilization was focused on a city that grew up on the west bank of the Río Albañiles in the 500s and 600s AD. It was quite large, and the monuments and zigurats that survive as ruins today are the most substantial architecture from the period. Tlonian control never seemed to have reached the coast, but there is evidence that their trading networks extended quite far, including Tlönian artifacts having been found as far away as Commonia and Karolia. It is not clear what caused the downfall of the Tlön, but current hypotheses include exhaustion of agricultural lands due to poor practices and the idea that there was a gradual drying of the regional climate, lowering the upper Albañiles Valley's carrying capacity.

The inheritors of the Tlönian civilization were the Albalongan groups settled around the Costa de Dragones (at that time, historically, a vast inland sea and saltmarsh wetland), on various islands in the sea and points around the perimeter. Albalonga was never a civilization or empire as such, but rather a collection of city states, that surrounded the Costa de Dragones and extended up the Río Hierro and Rio Albañiles as far as the great lakes regions, thus encompassing most of the modern Ardisphere and parts to the west.

The two great archeological sites associated with Albalonga are the place that is called Albalonga proper, which is a small, walled town which now sits right in the middle of the capital city just west of downtown, punctuating the city's skyline of highrises with its ancient profile, a living archeological site with the many layers of Albalongan, Altazorian, Castellanese and modern Ardispherian structures - continuously occupied for over 1000 years now. The other major site is Buyambá, about 100 km north of Albalonga on what at that time was an island in the Costa de Dragones near the modern town of Fuerte Cuadrado. Buyambá was not a town, as such, but a sacred site shared by surrouding peoples, who would travel there for important religious events. The zigurat there is not as large as those at Tlön or some other locations, but it is by far the best preserved, and the local First Peoples still actively use the site for their traditional ceremonies. It is notably not a restoration but rather a continuously maintained site, unlike any other site of such age in the region.

The Altazorians were in fact part of the Albalongan complex, a sort of Albalongan cultural outpost place to the north of the Sierra de los Cientoocho. As the Albalongan cities and towns fell into a never-ending cycle of civil war and retributive genocide, the Altazorians proved to be the only group with sufficient military force and cultural impetus to be able to bring the other towns and groups into line, and thus the Albalongan city states evolved into the Tributate, a more-or-less feudal arrangement where the various towns in the region owed their protection to Altazor, which became the heart of a sort of mercantile empire sometimes called the "Pax Altazoriana," much larger than the modern Ardisphere.

Unfortunately, the Albalongan groups on the coast resented the imperialisms of the interior, and by around 1500 AD the region once again descended into chaotic and genocidal civil war. This was unfortunate, because as the colonialists from Ingerland and Castellán arrived in the first decades of that century, they found a country decimated, lacking both in people and in resources. The Castellanese walked into the fortified town of Albalonga, finding it abandoned, and within 30 years they controlled the entire region south of the Sierra de los Cientoocho, with almost no military effort.

The Altazorians remained a power beyond the mountains for another 100 years or so, but by the 1640s Altazor itself had fallen to the Castellanese, and it evolved into the unusual combination of colonial and pre-colonial culture that it remains today, still called by many Ardispherians the "El Imperio Interior" - the interior empire.

Colonial Period - 16th through 18th Centuries

See also: Colonial Governors of Nuevo Castellán

... more coming someday! ...

Independence and 19th Century

See also: Ardispherian Civil War

... more coming someday! ...

20th Century

... more coming someday! ...

21st Century

... more coming someday! ...

Geography

Physical Regions

The nine geographic regions of the Ardisphere.

Despite being a fairly small country, the Ardisphere has a very diverse physical geography due to the variegated topography (from coastal plains to 5000 m mountains), as well as the remarkable differential in precipitation between the western and eastern parts of the country. The western third of the country is near desert (with less than 10 cm of precipitation annually at Bellas Aguas or Comala, for example), while the eastern third is quite wet (with over a meter of precipitation annually at both Puerto Desolado in the far southeast and at Yeonggwang in the far northeast). The middle third is a transition from these two extremes.

View northwest toward the Serranía de Quián, just north of Nueces de Quián in Departamento Occidental, on the western edge of the Costa de Dragones flatlands.

There are 9 geographic regions in the country. They are, in roughly counterclockwise order around the country, starting from the south (see map at left):

1 The coastal ranges and islands of the south
2 The Au River valley and delta
3 The Bahía Negra hills
4 The "Costa de Dragones" - a vast inland delta plain
5 The high mountains of the Sierra de los Cientoocho
6 The hill country of the east and northeast
7 The north central great lakes region (Lago Libertad, Marverde, Lago Moyica, Lago Trece Templos)
8 The northwest altiplano
9 The western canyonlands (including several isolated volcanic peaks, such as Volcán de Guerra)

Climate

... more coming someday! ...

Political Divisions

Federal Subjects

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A map showing the first level political divisions of the Ardisphere.

The Ardisphere is divided into ten first-level divisions, called sujetos federales ("federal subjects"). In fact they are mostly called departamentos ("departments"), but the two autonomous cultural regions are called colonias ("colonies", but the meaning is that they have more autonomy, not that they are literally colonies), and the capital area was split off due to its high population and made into the distrito federal ("federal district").

Each federal subject has a great deal of latitude in how much political control can be devolved to its parts. Thus the Colonia Coreana, for example, is highly centralized and the counties serve mostly census and statistical functions, while in the Departamento del Sur, as a counter-example, each county has its own legislature and a great deal of autonomy from the departmental government, to such an extent that the departmental government has very limited powers - essentially it is a federation of counties within the larger national federation. For more information on how each federal subject is structured and governed, see the individual article related to that federal subject, linked in the table below of the 10 first-level political divisions.

PostCode	Name	Capital	Area (km²)	Population	Density	Map Link	List of Places
7xxx DB	Departamento Boreal	Capital Boreal	21576	265000	12.3	map	List of Places
2xxx DC	Departamento del Centro	Torre de Ladrillo	19083	4650000	243.7	map	List of Places
9xxx CC	Colonia Coreana	Jeongto	20679	1840000	89.0	map	List of Places
1xxx DF	Distrito Federal	Villa Constitución	911	5414000	5937.1	map	List of Places
8xxx CG	Colonia Galesa	Ynys Dieithriaid	2141	130000	60.7	map	List of Places
3xxx DL	Departamento Libertad	Villa Libertad	17851	915000	51.3	map	List of Places
6xxx DM	Departamento de Montañas	Ciudad Trece Templos	19327	470000	24.3	map	List of Places
4xxx DO	Departamento Occidental	Cerro y Casa	26809	1228000	45.8	map	List of Places
5xxx DP	Departamento de Páramos	Comala	32098	595000	18.5	map	List of Places
0xxx DS	Departamento del Sur	Faro	4049	2115000	522.3	map	List of Places