Mapping Medieval and Modern Amestris

[Big Brother]

I'm currently working on creating from scratch a fairly detailed map of both modern and medieval Amestris and the surrounding area. Darn little detail is provided in either the manga or anime, and unlike star trek, the official publications and website also seem to lack anything like a map of the world.

What info we can glean from the official canon will be included in the map, but large swaths of the countryside will have to be filled in with non-canonical details. If anyone has any suggestions for the names of towns, rivers, or other geographical features, kindly let me know either in an email, IM, or a reply on this thread.

While the map is still under construction, we'll be able to shoehorn in pretty much any ideas you have, but once we get a finalized map, it's going to be used as the basis for an outline of the recent history of each area that I am in the early planning stages of writing. As my character is likely to be very much involved in the process of trying to unify the several petty kingdoms into the united Amestris of the canon era, I'm going to need a defined political and geographical landscape before I can go about altering it in my storyline. If anyone else wants to include geographically or historically relevant details in their character's backstory, we'll going to need to coordinate our conceptions of this setting to avoid inconsistencies and contradictions. So if you want your character to be, say, Duke of the East, we'll need to work out the details so we don't have two people writing quite different descriptions of the political and geographic landscape of the same geographical area.

[Big Brother]

By the way, I'm not just planning to map Amestris itself. Amestris and Ishbal are planned to be mapped in some detail, and perhaps the immediate border regions of the neighboring canonical nations of Areugo, Creata, and Drachma, perhaps a tiny bit of the canonical Xing. However, in my constant quest to expand the scale of this world, I'm also working on a much rougher map of the wider world beyond Amestris' borders. I'm adding a bunch of non-canonical nations, in case we want to have foreign mercearies or ambassadors stirring up trouble and political intrigue, or someone wants to go on a long journey overseas. They will be described in moderate detail in a later post as to their culture and rough internal geography (that file is currently being written), but I've already got a very (very very very) rough world map all made. The shapes and such are incredibly rough on this sketch, and should not be considered in any manner finalized or accurate, this was drawn freehand in MSPaint so as to show the very rough shape and size of country, and more importantly, their rough relative location. Colors mean little or nothing, chosen for convenience.

The map can be seen here: img47.echo.cx/img47/1149/fmkworld8dg.gif

For a rough idea of the culture, climate, and politics of each nation, you can consider them as extremely rough analogs of these real-world nations:

Amestris: Germanic/Roman
Alba: England
Creata: France
Andulasia: Spain
Bengaza: Carthage/Algeria
Karnaka: Ptolemaic Egypt
Areugo: Greece
Drachma: Poland/Germany
Florin: Viking Denmark
Guilder: Viking Sweden
Sarmatia: Russia/Mongolia
Ishbal: Mideast
Sindi: India
Xing: China
Yamato: Japan
Southern Desert: Sahara (pretty much unpopulated)
Terra Incognita: Lands are thought/rumored to exist here, but little or nothing is known about them by Amestrians or their immediate neighbors

Names and pretty much everything else is of course subject to change or revision, this is to be considered as merely a very rough first draft.

Whaddaya think, sirs?

[Mlle Bienvenu]

Wow...this is really great BB! I'm impressed...:-) I really like the names you chose for your fictional countries too... they feel very FMA-ish... ( I especially like Egypt, since the word Alchemy is related to the name the arabs gave the people of Egypt, since it was thought the art was from there... so Al-Kamika... nice reference ^_^ )

Do we have any names for the principalities inside Amestris yet? I have some suggestions if you haven't gotten anything yet...Sihlbrücke, Einsiedeln, Würtemberg (Where Hohenheim Castle is) ... these are all places the historical!Paracelsus visited/lived/owned...thought it would be a cool reference :-)

[Big Brother]

Mlle said:

Wow...this is really great BB! I'm impressed...:-) I really like the names you chose for your fictional countries too... they feel very FMA-ish... ( I especially like Egypt, since the word Alchemy is related to the name the arabs gave the people of Egypt, since it was thought the art was from there... so Al-Kamika... nice reference ^_^ )

Karnaka was actually a reference to the great temple complex at Karnak, immortalized as the name for Karnak the Great, Johnny Carson's fake fortune-teller character. I had previously considered and rejected naming the Egypt-clone country Memphis, Iskandria, and Gypsia.

Florin and Guilder are, of course, the fictional countries from The Princess Bride, both named after old European units of currency, as is Drachma, their nearest canonical neighbor. We could also do Livria, Lira, Ecu, Sou, Groat, and a few others, but I think we flogged that particular dead horse enough.

Sarmatia is an old Roman term for the area far beyond the Danube, and was the province roughly equal to modern Ukraine in "Centurion", an old computer game I used to have.

Alba is a variant of "Albion", a term for England based on the white cliffs of Dover. Also, it's a nod to the lovely Jessica Alba. (hmm....that might bring up some odd ads on the Google ad bar on this page)

Sindi is fairly obvious, referring both to Sind, a province of modern Pakistan, and to Scindia, the name of a Maharajah of Gwalior who fought against the British in the Mahratta Wars of the late 1700's.

Yamato is both an actual river in Japan, and part of the Japanese phrase "Yamato Daimaishi" (spelling probably mis-remembered) meaning "nationalist feeling".

Bengaza is named for the Libyan city of Benghazi. I'm not happy with this one, and may change it to Alegria, Maghreb, Rubiyat, Muwahid, or even Tophet (the plain where Carthaginian nobles sacrificed their children to Moloch, also the name of a planet in the Starship Troopers TV series).

Andulasia is a mis-spelling of Andalusia, a modern Spanish province named after al-Andalus, the moorish name for muslim Iberia, and also the online handle of a woman I once knew via Andromeda fandom who got a character on that TV series named after her for her contributions to online fandom. She provided many of the screencaps I used on my own Andromeda fansite.

Mlle said:

Do we have any names for the principalities inside Amestris yet? I have some suggestions if you haven't gotten anything yet...Sihlbrücke, Einsiedeln, Würtemberg (Where Hohenheim Castle is) ... these are all places the historical!Paracelsus visited/lived/owned...thought it would be a cool reference :-)

Ugh, I'm already cringing at the mere thought of trying to keep typing those names correctly...I already stuck Wurtemberg on my detailed map of Amestris (without the dots over the U, as I refuse to use diacritical marks unless absolutely necessary), but I'm trying to keep place-names fairly short to avoid cluttering up the map, and because those of us planning lots of military maneuvers and battles in our plot lines don't want to have to keep typing "the battle of Überschwartzenunterhosen" every third paragraph. But I am planning on using as many shorter German place-names as I can think up that don't use odd spelling formations, as well as sticking in a bunch of other obscure references.

Modern Amestris in the anime seems fairly multicultural, with names and such with Italian/Latin (Breda, Havoc), Japanese (Haruko, Hayate), English (Armstrong), French (Farman), Spanish (Mustang) and vaguely eastern european (Sheska) derivations. As it's roughly in the middle of this world, and with it's geograph of being basically one big flat plain, I expect it's historically been invaded and marched across by a multitude of barbarian hordes throughout the ages, and each group probably left a few names and place-names behind.

[Lolua]

Mlle said:

Do we have any names for the principalities inside Amestris yet? I have some suggestions if you haven't gotten anything yet...Sihlbrücke, Einsiedeln, Würtemberg (Where Hohenheim Castle is) ... these are all places the historical!Paracelsus visited/lived/owned...thought it would be a cool reference :-)

I named a principality "Leyhara" in my character bio, but I'm not married to the name. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with the Lord of Leyhara, so it's hard for me to pick out a non-arbitrary name. I get the sense that he's either constantly making war on his neighbors or constantly being invaded by them, because something has to be driving the weapons insdustry there. But I digress. If anyone has any better ideas for a name, let me know.

[Big Brother]

Leyhara...I like it. One of the ideas I had was that the "Central", "East", and so forth cites and regions were all renamed by Bradley's predecessor, the original Fuhrer who unified modern Amestris. This was done both from pure cold logical considerations of efficiency, and also as part of a campaign to wipe out the memory of the previous local regimes from the collective memory.

People might revolt to restore the great Legacy of Leyhara and make its name shine once more...but after a few generations, if everyone simply calls it "West Headquarters", the very concept of holding a rebellion and declaring independence seems silly. "An independent West Headquarters? West of what? Headquarters for whom? Don't be ridiculous!"

Any preference for where in modern Amestria you want Leyhara to be? In the west near the Creata border (to justify your Creatan blacksmith friend)?

(Tangent: Creatan? Creatine? Creatian? Creationese?)

Mlle's character seems to be starting in the east to be closer to Ishbal and Xing at the start.

(Tangent: Xingian sounds like a good name for slimy green aliens in an old 1930's space-opera story...how about Xingu as the collective term for the people of Xing? Following FMA tradition of using military-related names, it's the name of an obscure Brazilian-built light military transport plane)

I'm still working on where to put the actual city-state of Amestris City, the guys who conquer the whole enchilada eventually and create the unified nation that Bradley will eventually run into the ground...was originally planning on making it the future Central City, but am now thinking of putting it up near where the Briggs Mountain Range comes close to the Ishbalan border and make it good horse-raising terrain...

[Lolua]

I've got a proposed set of names for the different ethnicities, should someone besides me want to talk about all the different lands on the map that BB drew.

The table is arranged by language group: in other words, the languages and peoples that I think might have evolved together or from each other are grouped together. In the first column is the rough real-world equivalent of each country, followed in the second column by the name BB gave or derived from FMA canon. The third column tells what the people are called. Some examples of how the info is used:

• Singular and plural forms given: Nicholas Flamel is Amestrian. His father and grandmother are Amestrians.
  
• One form given: Elaine is Creatari. Her three children are Creatari.
  
• Masculine/feminine singular forms are given: Judas is Bengazo. His daughter Shayla is Bengaza. They are Bengazi.

The fourth column lists the name of the language. William speaks Albanese.

Equivalent	Country	Person, People	Language
Germanic/Roman	greater Amestris	Amestrian, Amestrians	Amestrian
several sub-groups	-	-	-
---	---	---	---
France	Creata	Creatari	Createan
England	Alba	Alban, Albans	Albanese
Spain	Andulasia	Andulasian, Andulasians	Andusina
---	---	---	---
Greece	Areugo	Areuk, Areuks	Oracki
Carthage/Algeria	Bengaza	Bengazo/a, Bengazi	Gazi
Ptolemaic Egypt	Karnaka	Karnaku, Karnake	Karnish
---	---	---	---
Russia/Mongolia	Sarmatia	Sarmatian, Sarmatians	Sarma
Poland/Germany	Drachma	Drachmara	Drachmonian
Viking Denmark	Florin	Florinese	Florinese
Viking Sweden	Guilder	Guilderian, Guilderians	Guilderian
---	---	---	---
Mideast	Ishbal	Ishbalan	Ishbalan
---	---	---	---
India	Sindi	Sind, Sindi	Sindi
several sub-groups	-	-	-
---	---	---	---
China	Xing	Xingu	Xinga
Japan	Yamato	Yamati	Yamatese

Feel free to change any of this to suit your own needs. After all, the names of lands, people, or languages may be different in that country than they are in Amestrian or whatever fourth-wall language we're wrtiting in.

[Big Brother]

Okay, I'm now working on the various petty kingdoms within the future Amestris. I've got two of them planned out so far:

Leyhara: basically the future Western Amestris. Centered on the city of Leyhara, the future West HQ. Details left up to Lolua for now. Ruler is likely The Lord of Leyhara. Probably based on Hannover.

Heikatic League: Loose confederation of several port cities on the southwest coast, many of them clustered around Heike Bay. Based on the Hanseatic League of German trading cities. Ruled by an oligarchy dominated by merchant princes.

Other details still under development. Suggestions will be appreciated.

[Lolua]

Big said:

By the way, I'm not just planning to map Amestris itself. Amestris and Ishbal are planned to be mapped in some detail, and perhaps the immediate border regions of the neighboring canonical nations of Areugo, Creata, and Drachma, perhaps a tiny bit of the canonical Xing.

I was clicking around last night and found that someone on LJ had already compiled a map of modern Amestris, based on the map shown in Episode 26 of the anime and trying to incorporate what's made known in the manga as well. It makes a good general reference for where things are in modern Amestris and might be used as a model/cheat sheet for starting our own detailed map. Keep in mind that the comments below it on LJ do contain some series spoilers.

Map of Amestris: www.livejournal.com/community/fm_alchemist/1512312.html

Big said:

Other details still under development. Suggestions will be appreciated.

The LJ map doesn't include the water-city of Aquaroya, where Psiren does her alchemist-thief/con artist thing. She appears only in the anime (Episode 10), but I like the idea of a canal-filled Venice-like city very much. Part of its plotline in the anime is that the city is sinking into a lake (again, like Venice), which suggests that it's very old. Because Aquaroya is on a lake instead of a salt-water coastline, it doesn't necessarily have to be part of this planned Heikatic League, but we could keep it in mind for an inland trading principality/city-state, maybe situated where the trade road from Xing skirts around the edge of a large lake.

[Big Brother]

Okay, I've got the first draft of the map of Amestris itself and the immediate surrounding area complete. Well, I've got the cities and road network complete. Some of these roads will likely be changed to rivers at some point, but this should be fairly accurate. Aside from adding some cities (mainly so we have enough coastal towns for the Heikatic Leauge to be worth mentioning) and directly related changes to the road network, the only major change from that LJ map is moving South City (not yet renamed that, still called Beram) a bit farther south.

Now I need to redo the world map to reflect the change in where Amestris' coastline is in relation to Areugo from my rough-draft map, and divide up Amestris into the dozen or so petty kingdoms....

[Lolua]

A couple of things....

As honored as I am to have a whole city named "Lolua," it might be confusing to have something on the map that's so close to a player name. May I suggest renaming it Krozeburg or something similar?

Since you haven't seen the relevant episodes of the anime, I forgive you for sticking Xenotime where you did. It should probably be over in the eastern province, maybe in the same general mining area as Youswell. Ed and Al stop at Xenotime on a tip while on their way back to East HQ from Aquaroya, which probably means Aquaroya and Xenotime are fairly close. (Thanks, Mlle!)

[Big Brother]

Lolua said:

As honored as I am to have a whole city named "Lolua," it might be confusing to have something on the map that's so close to a player name. May I suggest renaming it Krozeburg or something similar?

Done. Several other cities are named after our online handles and real names....re-arrange the sylables in cities like "Kobubdis" and "Leyash", and spell "Nitram" backwards...

Lolua said:

Since you haven't seen the relevant episodes of the anime, I forgive you for sticking Xenotime where you did. It should probably be over in the eastern province, maybe in the same general mining area as Youswell. Ed and Al stop at Xenotime on a tip while on their way back to East HQ from Aquaroya, which probably means Aquaroya and Xenotime are fairly close. (Thanks, Mlle!)

I'll move Xenotime as well...

[Mlle Bienvenu]

moneycentral.groups.msn.com/FullMetalAlchemist/chapter5.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=3169

thought this might be helpful...it shows New Optain, Youswell, and East City....

also note the time difference in the manga and the anime.... interesting....

[Big Brother]

Well, now I understand why some of the maps I've found online show Ishbal as being a tiny little Connecticut-sized sub-province in the East Province. Which makes some sense, as far as making it more reasonable that the entire population of Ishbal could be nearly wiped out in a very brief campaign. But it also makes darn little sense in terms of explaining why Ishbal has it's own distinct racial (brown skin, red eyes) linguistic, and religious traditions,whereas the rest of the much, much larger Amestrian culture seems fairly monolithic. Perhaps they're somewhat like the Basques, but even the Basques don't differ in religious terms from their Catalan, Spanish, French, and Gascon neighbors.

[Mlle Bienvenu]

I don't understand how that map gives you the impression that Ishbal is small... the whole section hanging off the map labeled labeled 'East Area' is Ishbal. Admittedly, most of that is probably part of the Great Desert, so however big Ishbal is, it still has a smaller population made up mostly of nomadic tribes, from what I understand.

EDIT: Ah, I think I see what you're thinking... I assumed that darker area is a lake, and the small spot on the darker area I believe to be Aquaroya. I have no proof, of course, but that would be my guess.

[Big Brother]

Exactly...I can understand why some people would look at that map and think the darkened area was Ishbal, but I myself interpreted the "East Area" to be the Eastern Desert, much of which was in Ishbal....

Which would put the Eastern Desert to the west of the Great Desert, but hey, it's the same way that the East River actually flows south...