Gotfriedland and Karsten
| Gotfriedland and Karsten Gotfriedland un Karsten | |
| State of Isles of Caputia | |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Status | State |
| Region | Isles of Caputia |
| Capital | Gotfriedplatz |
| Largest city | Gotfriedplatz |
| Other cities | |
| Demographics | |
| Population (1748 AN) | 15,870,000 |
| • Ranked | 1st in the Isles of Caputia |
| Demonym | Islander |
| Ethnic groups |
|
| Languages |
|
| Religion | Melusinian Faith (majority) |
| Government | |
| Legislature | Congress of the Isles |
| History and other | |
| Established | 1699 AN |
| Establishing act | Regional and Local Government Organization Act, 1699 |
| Preceded by | |
| Abbreviation | GKA |
|
| |
Gotfriedland and Karsten (Kydrian: Gotfriedland un Karsten) is a state of the Isles of Caputia, a Region of the Federation of Nouvelle Alexandrie. It takes in the two principal islands of the archipelago, Gotfriedland and Karsten, which are joined across the Karsten Sound by the Isles of Caputia Belt Bridge. Its capital is Gotfriedplatz, which is also the seat of the regional government, and its largest cities are Gotfriedplatz and Port Karsten. The most populous of the four states of the Isles, it held 15,870,000 of the region's inhabitants at the federal census of 1748 AN.[1][2]
The state holds much of the Kydrian heartland of the Isles, the Kydros lands it shares with the neighboring state of Ulrichstadt. Its older cities, Gotfriedplatz and Port Karsten, carry Kydrian names, while the youngest, Seydlitz, is named for the first Duke of Gotfriedplatz.[3][4][5][2] The regional capital stands within the state, together with the largest share of the region's population, its financial center, and its foremost fishing and shipping ports.
Geography
Gotfriedland and Karsten lies in the Captive Sea off western Keltia and is made up of the two largest islands of the Isles of Caputia, Gotfriedland, whose main island is Gotfried Insel, and Karsten. The two are separated by the Karsten Sound and joined across it by the Isles of Caputia Belt Bridge, officially the Elizabeth I Bridge, a fixed link of 12.7 kilometers between Schenenwalt on the Karsten shore and Valheld on the Gotfriedland shore. A crossing of the sound was first proposed in a memorandum of 1710 AN between the Congress of the Isles and Governor Gerhardt Eugen Seydlitz; the bridge was funded in 1729 AN under the National Infrastructure Plan of President Marissa Santini and opened by King Sinchi Roca in 1734 AN. It carries a road and a data cable that ties the region's telecommunications together, and replaced the ferries that had been the only means of crossing the sound by car, two of which remain in service.[6]
Gotfriedplatz stands on the west coast of Gotfried Insel, and although it is the regional capital much of the city lies below sea level.[7] Port Karsten lies on the Karsten shore of the sound. The Isles of Caputia Railway runs from Gotfriedplatz through Ulrichstadt and Velez to its terminus at Seydlitz.[5] The state's coasts front the fishing grounds that have been a mainstay of the island economy since the Hammish period.[2]
History
The islands that form the state were the remnant lands of Iridia, and it was the Iridian ground about Gotfriedplatz that carried the Kydrian stock from which the archipelago drew its cities and its language. The Iridian lands passed under Ocian control and then under the rule of the Commonwealth of Hamland, within which they lay in the Region of the Isles, a union of territories of separate histories bound by their dependence on the sea.[3][8] Port Karsten was founded on this ground about 1620 AN and grew into one of the principal Kydrian settlements of the islands.[3]
Under the Kingdom of Caputia the archipelago formed a state in its own right, governed from Gotfriedplatz, until Caputian rule was ended by the White Plague, the epidemic that destroyed the Keltian kingdom and dispersed its people into the Caputian diaspora.[2] The islands passed with the rest of the Region of the Isles into Nouvelle Alexandrie in the seventeenth century, when the Caputian Resettlement Authority was chartered to resettle the dispersed population. In the resettlement that followed, the harbor at Port Karsten was rebuilt, as were the ports at Port Tablot and Velez, and the archipelago was integrated as a Region of the Federation.[9][2]
Government
Gotfriedland and Karsten is one of the four states into which the Isles of Caputia are divided. Under the Regional and Local Government Organization Act, 1699, the states of a Region are created and chartered by its regional legislature, which for the Isles is the Congress of the Isles, and each state may frame and adopt a charter and levy taxes for state purposes within the limits the Act and the region set.[10] The state is not sovereign, and legislative authority for the region as a whole rests with the Congress of the Isles, whose members sit as Deputies and are elected at large for five-year terms.[2][10] The seat of the regional government lies within the state at Gotfriedplatz; as of 1758 AN the region's elected Regional Governor is Heinrich von Staufen of the Federal Humanist Party.[2]
Judicial authority within the state, as throughout the region, is exercised by the regional court, which sits at Velez and forms the middle tier of the federal judiciary between the local courts below and the High Court of Justice of Nouvelle Alexandrie above.[2] Below the state, the Local Government framework carried into that Act provides every city, town, and burgh with a Civic Assembly and a Youth Assembly, deliberative bodies that meet monthly to consider community affairs and receive petitions.[10]
Administrative divisions
The state is divided into municipalities named for their seats, which are usually their largest urban centers; Gotfriedplatz is further subdivided into Wards.[2] Its principal cities are the regional capital Gotfriedplatz, the port city of Port Karsten, and Seydlitz.
The Iridian lands about Gotfriedplatz and Karsten, part of the Kydros heartland of the old Region of the Isles, are preserved within the state as a named heritage region under the name Iridia. The founding territories of the Isles are kept in this way as heritage units within the modern states, which do not themselves correspond to the older divisions.[8]
| City | Population (1758 AN est.) |
|---|---|
| Gotfriedplatz | 3,600,000 |
| Port Karsten | 2,100,000 |
| Seydlitz | 540,000 |
Economy
The economy of Gotfriedland and Karsten rests on finance, fishing, and shipping, the three mainstays of the wider regional economy.[2] Gotfriedplatz is the financial and administrative center of the Isles, a standing that reaches back to the Hammish period, when gold mined from the hills around the city underwrote the growth of its banking industry; Tablot Gold, seated in the city, grew into the largest gold exporter of Hamland.[2][11] Port Karsten is the region's principal port after the capital and a center of fishing and food processing. It is also the seat of Nordfryst AS, a frozen-foods multinational of the ESB Group, which moved its headquarters to the city in 1753 AN; Seydlitz is the seat of the ESB Group's Directorate of Keltian Operations, redomiciled there in 1735 AN.[3][12] The fishery, worked from the island harbors since Hammish times, remains among the largest of the Federation, and Gotfriedplatz is noted for its mussels.[2][7]
Demographics
At the federal census of 1748 AN the state held 15,870,000 people, the largest population of the four states of the Isles.[13][1] Its people are chiefly of Kydrian and Hammish descent, together with the resettled Caputian population, and the Melusinian Faith is the religion of the majority, as it is across the region. The Kydrian language, the Kydrian variety of the Isles, is in daily use alongside the Common Tongue and Alexandrian.[2]
Education
The region's two universities both stand within the state, and both are centers of maritime study. Port Karsten University, the older, was founded in 1698 AN by the federal Department of Education, Sports, and Culture together with the Congress of the Isles; among its faculties is one of Maritime Sciences, and it was the pre-eminent university of the Isles until the founding of its rival.[14][2] The University of the Isles, established at Gotfriedplatz in 1733 AN with auxiliary campuses at Ulrichstadt and Velez, grew into the largest university in the region.[15]
Culture
The architecture of Gotfriedplatz derives from the Genevan style of Alduria, a Caputian-era inheritance layered over the Kydrian character of the city's name.[7] The Melusinian Faith shapes much of the state's public culture. The Shrine of the Seas at Gotfriedplatz is one of the faith's chief sanctuaries and a place of pilgrimage, drawing the faithful of the Caputian diaspora to the regional capital.[16] At Gotfriedplatz the Memorial Gardens, endowed by the House of Brenneis, preserve the remembrance of the White Plague.[17] Association football has a long history in the islands, from the Hammish-era clubs of Kydros to the Port Karsten Kings of Ligue 1, founded about 1689 AN, who play at Seydlitz National Stadium.[2][18]
See also
References
- ^ a b Administrative divisions of Nouvelle Alexandrie.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Isles of Caputia.
- ^ a b c d Port Karsten.
- ^ Kydros.
- ^ a b Seydlitz.
- ^ Isles of Caputia Belt Bridge.
- ^ a b c Gotfriedplatz.
- ^ a b Region of the Isles.
- ^ Chartered settlement companies (Nouvelle Alexandrie).
- ^ a b c Regional and Local Government Organization Act, 1699.
- ^ Tablot Gold.
- ^ ESB Group (Keltia).
- ^ 1748 New Alexandrian census.
- ^ Port Karsten University.
- ^ University of the Isles.
- ^ Melusinian Faith.
- ^ House of Brenneis.
- ^ Port Karsten Kings.
