geography

There are two major landmasses in the World, the Continent (Yābisa) and the Western Isle (Gang-i Bāxtar)

Great cities

  • Auvers (Awbiris), metropole for the Espariot dominions
  • the port of Bendera (Bandar-i Munawwar, lit. “the Luminous Port”), a den of pirates and adventurers[1]
  • tile-roofed Cambaluc (Xān-bāliġ), capital of all under heaven
  • the steamy metropolis of Cherinao (Šahr-i Nāw, lit. “the City of Boats”), crisscrossed by canals[2]
  • Nahidabad (Nāhīd-ābād, lit. “City of Venus”) and Bahramabad (Bahrām-ābād, “City of Mars”), sister cities separated by a holy river[3]
  • Ockeghem (Āk-ġam), city of tulips and spyglasses
  • Raia (Rāyat), one-time capital of the Old Empire
  • Secunda (Šaqunda), home of the rose and nightingale
  • pastel and gold Sarepta (Ṣarafand), pearl of the frigid north[4]
  • the walled city of La Tarana (Tarānā), haunt of buccaneers[5]
  • Tarshish (Taršīš) and its thousand balconies overlooking the Encircling Sea
  • silent and green Ventosela (Fantēzēla), where the rain never really stops[6]

Regions and territories

  • Alba (Albā)
  • Arnea (Irniya)
  • Beira do Mar (Bayramār)
  • the Catepanate (Qabūdānīyat)
  • Espary (Isfarī)
  • the Fens (Marimmī)
  • Myringia (Mīringistān)
  • the Red Countries (Kišwarhā-yi Surx)[7]
  • Sheba (Sabaʾ)

Diasporic peoples

The map

Frankish lands Cimmeria Cimmeria
Great Tarana (the Encircling Sea) the Summer Coast (the Azure Sea) Scythia Sila (the Encircling Sea)
Eden (the Encircling Sea) (the White Sea) Chaldea Scythia Sila (the Encircling Sea)
the Winter Coast (the Sea of Reeds) Ophir (the Green Sea) Serendip
the Meridian
Farangistān Qirim Qirim
Tarānā-yi Buzurg (baḥr-i Muḥīt) Sāḥil-i Tābistān (baḥr-i Lāǧaward) Tūrān Sīla (baḥr-i Muḥīt)
ʿAdn (baḥr-i Muḥīt) (baḥr-i Safēd, baḥr-i Rāyat) Kasdān Tūrān Sīla (baḥr-i Muḥīt)
Sāḥil-i Zimistān (baḥr-i Qulzum) Ūfīr (baḥr-i Sabz) Sarandīp
Nīmrōz

See also

  1. Mostly Casablanca (1942), with a bit of Geniza-era Alexandria thrown in.↩︎

  2. In truth, an old Persian name for Ayutthaya in Siam.↩︎

  3. I envision a sort of Cairo–Fusṭāṭ or Budapest situation here: on one side of the river, an age-old pilgrimage destination like Varanasi or Ayodhya; on the other, a political capital befitting a shah. ↩︎

  4. Cimmeria’s past is the Russian folklore of Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, rocketing into the gilded Moscow of War and Peace and the St. Petersburg of Nabokov’s nostalgia. ↩︎

  5. La Tarana is a microcosm of the Spanish Caribbean, with some Brazil thrown in for good measure: the early Colonial period of “Aires Bucaneros” and Coll y Toste → the Colombia of Cien Años de Soledad → my great-grandparents’ days. ↩︎

  6. Ventosela and Beira do Mar are a stand-in for northern Portugal and Galicia: oceanic climate, long maritime tradition, grim grey stone. ↩︎

  7. A rough stand-in for our Austria-Hungary: a pastoral fracture zone, half Germanic, half Glagolitic → Grand Budapest Hotel–land during the Days of Wine and Roses.↩︎