[Map Application] Socialist Federal Republic of Volta

[Kolhar]

Nation in Eurth: Volta
Flag: link to svg file on iiwiki


Capital name: Vien
Capital location: inland, on a river.

Stats Chosen:
Land: 349,576 km^2
Pop: 30,345,961
GDPpc: $14,561

NOTE: Some of these stats are negotiable. For example, I don't want the land area to change much, pop can be lowered slightly but I prefer it in the 29-mil to 30mil range, GDP is where I'm most flexible as I think it can be lowered as long as it doesn't go under $10,500-ish. I tried to keep it in the land-2 pop-1 GDP-1 point range.

Factbook/iiwiki link: https://iiwiki.us/wiki/Volta
NOTE: iiwiki is incomplete. A slightly more fleshed out version on a different wiki (that has not yet been adapted to Eurth) is available, and I can provide a link if requested.

Culture:
Indigenous people: Nahuatl/Aztec preferred, but it can be any mesoamerican culture that had a tradition of consuming chocolate (or xocolatl as the mesoamericans called it), so Mayan and Olmec and such are also acceptable.
Colonists: What would be RL Germans.
Current majority: A new mixed-race ethnicity that was born from the colonists and indigenous people mixing with each other.

Climate: I'm not too picky, as long as there is at least one area that is difficult to access (so like mountains or dense jungle/forest, or something like that) since that was used by the Communist rebels as a place to survive persecution from the old government prior to the Voltan Civil War.

History: This will be a general overview rather than an in-depth exploration. I hope that's alright. Also, as a side note, I will be using "German" as a placeholder for the colonists and country that colonized Volta from now on since I haven't decided specifically which Germanic country it would be.

Before Volta was Volta there was an indigenous people (whom for now I'm calling the Tlaloc, but that's negotiable as well). Tlaloc history isn't fleshed out yet so a lot of it is negotiable but the important point for now is that they existed and were organized into some sort of civilization. Then there was one attempt at colonization (haven't decided by who yet, but this can be by anyone as long as they're okay with the colonization failing), that was destroyed by the Tlaloc's. But that first attempt brought diseases and while this didn't wipe out their civilization, it did weaken them enough to where they couldn't push back the second attempt at colonization (this time by the Germans). Conflict between the new colonists and the indigenous people took more land from the indigenous people, and they were further weakened by the colonists taking some of them as slave labor. Eventually the colonists expanded to what is now Volta's borders, and the indigenous people were either forced into slavery, forced into remote areas of the colony, or forced to live with the colonists but only as part of the lowest social class.

Eventually people got fed up with being a colony, there was an independence war, and Volta gained independence. It was a democracy for 12 years (3 four year presidential terms) before the President did a coup and made himself President for life. The president, seeing that native slave labor was no longer enough to satisfy the agricultural labor demands, implemented a system of contract labor that allowed exploitation of the workers. People get angry, start organizing into revolutionary cells. One of these becomes the Communist Party.

Communist Party is almost destroyed, but survives by escaping to the mountains (or forest, or whatever hard-to-reach region there is). After regrouping and gaining more popularity, they start a civil war. Communists win. Communists set up their own government, which quickly turns into another dictatorship. At the same time they embark on a massive industrialization and modernization program. Economy grows at first due to the industrialization process being successful, but then stagnates. People now want change.

That's the gist of it. If you want more specifics just ask and I will provide, I just didn't want to make this more of a wall-of-text than it already is.

Desired Location: as long as there's at least one river,a decently sized coast (aka, I don't want just a tiny sliver like what the DR Congo has IRL), a place where the Communists could have hidden and survived before the Voltan Civil War, and it makes logical sense for the history and culture I've provided (though I'm pretty sure that goes without saying), I'm pretty flexible.

Edited June 28, 2021 by Volta
h-how did I forget that? (see edit history)

[Xio]

Hello and congrats on passing the academy. Nice to see a filled out application now lets see if we can get you on the map.

Regarding stats, your 349,576 km^2 land area, 30,345,961 population, and $14,561 GDP per capita comes out as 2/2/1. Which comes out as 5 points, 1 higher then allowed. You did remark on GDP being lower but not allowing it to go under the $10,500 range means it would still be 2/2/1. I would recommend population to be dropped below 30 million. Also it's unlikely your land area would come out to a perfect 349,576 km^2 as borders tend to conform to geographic terrain where possible - so expect it to range anywhere between 320,000-350,000.

1 & 2: Manamana Isthmus
  

Both come out as 349,800 km^2. The first is a more traditional placement following the border of the Manamana Canal, the second proposal uses an alternative proposal for the region and has the canal reduced significantly in size to be more realistic and within your borders. This would mean though you would have to accommodate the Manamana canal into your lore. However as the founders of the canal, Sunset Sea Islands and Synturia, are either officially inactive or left the community, you'll be able to adapt the canal to fit the lore of northern Aurelia / Mesothalassa and your nation's history. So this is more of an opportunity for interactions with other members of the community then something holding you down :).

Both locations possess tropical savannah climate, but do have variation in topography that would allow for more and less dense savannah forests to hide in. Also both have decent coastline.


3: Southern Alharu


On Eurth, the Nahua people migrated from the Chenshas region (large lake in central Alharu) southwards. So the location makes sense historically although is rather separate from other Mesoamerican inspired nations on Eurth. The terrain also has a more gradual change in topography and has the same tropical savannah climate, so hideable terrain is limited. The land area is 346,100 km^2.


4: Northern Aurelia


349,100 km^2. The area around the coastline is tropical monsoon and the interior tropical savannah with numerous river ways, so dense forested areas for hiding are possible. Decent coastline and close to other Mesoamerican inspired countries.

[Kolhar]

3 hours ago, Metztlitlaca said:

Hello and congrats on passing the academy. Nice to see a filled out application now lets see if we can get you on the map.

Regarding stats, your 349,576 km^2 land area, 30,345,961 population, and $14,561 GDP per capita comes out as 2/2/1. Which comes out as 5 points, 1 higher then allowed. You did remark on GDP being lower but not allowing it to go under the $10,500 range means it would still be 2/2/1. I would recommend population to be dropped below 30 million. Also it's unlikely your land area would come out to a perfect 349,576 km^2 as borders tend to conform to geographic terrain where possible - so expect it to range anywhere between 320,000-350,000.

Thanks for the quick reply!

Regarding the land not being exactly 349,576 km^2, that's alright since when I picked that I just went "349,[randomNumbers]" (same with pop and GDPpc, I went "30,3[randomNumbers]" and "$14,[randomNumbers]"). I wanted to give a number so that you had a general idea of how large to make the country rather than "this is exactly what I want and I won't change it" lol.

Somewhere in 29-mil range for population is fine by me, I'd just prefer it to be closer to the 30-mil mark than the 29-mil mark (so maybe 29,859,313 or something? I dunno I just went "29,8[randomNumbers]").

However I just want to bring up that the reason I set it above 30-mil but below 31-mil is because the intro and balance sheet says 1 point in pop is 11-30 mil, and that 2 points start at 31 mil. Because of this (and the fact that figured beyond the million are not given) I thought that everything 11,000,000 to 30,999,999 was counted as 1 point (and likewise that 0 points was up to 10,999,999 and 2 was up to 40,999,999). If the policy is that anything above 30,000,000 is 2 points (and similar for the other point boundaries), then I think the staff should consider re-wording the intro and balance sheet. Not trying to criticize anyone or anything, I just think that rewording it might avoid this sort of confusion in the future.

In regards to which borders.

My ranked preference is:

2 - although I think I would be okay with giving up some land to avoid that tiny exclave (by "exclave" I mean the piece of land in yellow in this link, and I would be okay with parting with something similar to the green area), everything else about it is perfect.

3 - although this one doesn't has much hidable terrain, I think I can work with it too.

1 - this is also a workable solution. Consider this more to be on equal terms with option 3 than anything else, this is just lower because if the only options I had were 3 or 1 I'd probably go with 3.

4 - no particular reason for this being last. It's acceptable as well, it's just that all options presented are pretty good. So this is more of a "least best candidate" than anything else.