Zigala

Zigala (: Tân Lập), officially the Great Zigalese Realm (Zigalese: Đại Tân Nhân Đế Quốc), is a   in Capricornia, occupying a long, narrow part of land in between the Akura Mountains to the west and the Laharqan Ocean to the east. It is bordered almost exclusively by Hyperaustrea to the north and west, with whom the Zigalese share a complex history. The Hoàng Cảng Metropolis Zone is Zigala's largest urban settlement and main commercial center, although the much older Imperial city of Tây Thành still remains the political and legislative capital. Other important cities include Vịnh Phú, Côn Tung, and Bạch Tháp.

Although native Hyperaustreans had inhabited the region since Antiquity, forming the basis for the Phutruang Empire, Zigalese civilization did not develop beyond feudal patchworks and tribal chiefdoms, the latter especially common in the parts covered by the inhospitable Serotian Rainforest, until the 17th century, when the Tapronized Ashwaaresh warbands of the Eshkaal Raja invaded and conquered northwestern Capricornia. Unlike the other autonomous satraps of the Phutruang Empire, who were allowed to retain their power structures for the most part under Ashwaareshi rule, the holdings of the petty kings and chiefs were directly subsumed into the eastern Raj as autonomous military commandments. It was from this period of direct Murogish rule as well the paternalistic tendencies of the Eshkaal Raja that modern Zigalese cultural practices, beliefs and societal principles are descended, and how the culture came to be viewed by both the Zigalese and other Capricornians as entirely separate from the Hyperaustrean one. In fact, the newfound differences between the two later became a driving force in the political separation of the Murogish-Zigalese sultans, who later consolidated into what one would now consider modern-day Zigala, from the other Hyperaustrean princely kingdoms. By the time of the Raja's death in the 1700s, the two had become separate political entities.

This state of affairs was not challenged until long after its conversion towards Infernalism began, when both Zigala and its neighbors fell under Fengese suzerainty, and the subsequent upheaval brought about by the Muslin Crisis more than a century later. For it was during this time that the Zigalese and Hyperaustreans developed in completely different directions. Whereas the latter loyally remained under Fengjiang even after the depredations of the Crisis and the revolt of the "Great Saint" that followed, the former saw being existentially threatened by a force supposedly born out of Fengese perfidy and greed as the last straw in a long list of oppressions committed against the Zigalese people. Matters finally came to ahead with the Three Cranes Plot in 1874, launched by a cabal of Hatar-educated Zigalese intellectuals who overthrew the Fengese-backed Lượng dynasty in the name of radical revolution against Occidental influence in Zigala; crucially, with support from an ascendant Avalonian Empire. The ensuing Avalono-Fengese War brought an end to Northern rule in Zigala, polarized relations between it and the rest of the Occident, and paved the way for 90 years of Avalonian dominion over the Great Zigalese Realm.

Avalonian stewardship left lasting, fundamental impacts on the Zigalese state: by the end of the first half of the 20th century, Zigala had developed from a Fengese backwater into an irreplaceable fixture of it's region; a nation built by Hatarians, located in the heart of Capricornia. Avalonia formally relinquished its protector status over Zigala with the signing of the Poitou-Trịnh Agreement, by which time its influence over the country had been largely ceremonial in any case.

Today, the Zigala is a highly developed country, and a in global politics. It's nominal GDP is the XXth largest in the world and one of the largest in Capricornia, indicative by the high rankings its economy has in terms of economic freedom, income equality, per-capita income, and inflows of foreign investment. Over the last five decades, the country has remained politically stable, and been recognized for its high living standards and consistent record of upholding human rights (particularly on matters of tolerance and inclusion), educational standards, environmental preservation, and pushing rapid infrastructural and technological advancements, as is currently the trend in countries professing Eastern values and principles, of which Zigala is one.

Due in part to a series of specific policies beginning in the 1970s, Zigala is a diverse and multiethnic country, to the extent that the majority of Zigalese citizens now declare to be of two or more ethnicities (Zigalese, Avalonian, and other Capricornians being most common). This has caused Zigalese culture to be prominently featured in other parts of Capricornia and around the world, spreading its art, cuisine, film, music, and, most notably, popular culture, cementing the country as a.

Etymology
While there is a general consensus that "Zigala" is derived from an Avalonian corruption of the name Giala'is that Rhodinian traders gave to the region on their one of their visits there in the 1400s, the origins of "Tân Lập" have eluded etymologists thus far. One of the more popular hypothesis concludes that the name must be a combination of the Old Zigalese word for newness and modernity, Tân, and the word for creation and formation, Lập, to mean "Newly Created (Nation)". This suggests that the name is Fengese in origin, as both words are Zigalese transliterations of the Standard Fengese characters 新 (Xīn) and 立 (Lì) respectively.

"Tân" is also understood to be an archaic and highly old-fashioned name used by the Zigalese people to refer to themselves, which if used would turn the meaning into "(Nation) Created by the Zigalese".

Economy
Zigala's economy ranks Xth nominal and Xth purchasing power parity GDP in the world, identifying it favorably among the major economies of the world and making it one of the largest in Capricornia. It is highly-developed and high-income, with an educated workforce and plentiful natural resources, especially in the North of Zigala, forming the backbone of its service and manufacturing-based economic prowess. The country performs well in terms of quality of life, social welfare, most democracy measures, stability, social progress, and Ponterosan proficiency, being a highly developed country possessed of a markedly better Human Development Index than a majority of its neighbors, Hyperaustrea included. It also a founding member of several major regional and international economic blocs.

Once known a poor backwater during its time under Fengese rule, its northern colonizers having neglected its primitive and decentralized economy in favor of the muslin-fueled industrialization of neighboring Hyperaustrea, Zigala saw significant economic modernization with the arrival of Avalonian investment in the latter half of the 19th century, giving rise to rapid and wide-ranging industrialization which coincided with the re-orientation of the Zigalese economy towards a model of Hatarian-influenced classical liberal market capitalism. The end of the Great War, of which Zigala was a major participant in its capacity as an Avalonian dominion and a recipient of a massive Hyperaustrean invasion at the start of the Serica War, added to the mix a trend of increasing state interventionism as the government sought to revitalize a Zigalese economy that had suffered greatly during the Sneedhavn market crash and the Hyperaustrean invasion. Effective and extensive measures in development and education since then, made possible by the ascendency of the Zigalese government's economic development bodies over the private sector in the post-war economic schism and the absence of the once-dominant Hatarian nations in the global economy in the years immediately following the war, allowed a now unimpeded Zigala to surpass other, more developed economies and cement itself as one of the major economic players of the Western Hemisphere. The development of the Northern Zigala played a pivotal role in this period of unpredecented economic growth; while previously seen as a place too inhospitable and harsh for any kind of wothwhile investment, the Zigalese nevertheless found in their jungle-clad septentrional regions fertile grounds for exploitation thanks to their bountiful, untapped natural resources, as well as a suitable place to settle their growing middle-class population which had emerged in recent years. Resources from the north later provided the lit match for the Zigalese Economic Miracle of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, and many of its cities soon found themselves rapidly transformed into vital arteries of finance and commerce in their own right, including what is now Zigala's largest metropolis, Hoàng Cảng.

Zigala today possesses a dynamic, export-driven capitalist market economy, characterized by an emphasis on high-tech manufacturing, information technology development, a large and modern agricultural sector (with one of the world's largest rice and cocoa productions), and well-known for a developed and influential light industry sector specializing in cultural and general consumption-based products, most notably high-end, luxury goods. However, despite the country's high growth potential and apparent stability, it nonetheless suffers damage to its credit rating in the stock market because of the belligerence of its geopolitical rival, Hyperaustrea, in times of deep military crises, which has an adverse effect on Zigalese financial markets. Endemic instability in surrounding Capricornian countries has also been cited as a source of concern for the structural soundness of Zigalese finances, a fact which has contributed to great a-many Zigalese interventions on the continent.

Since the end of 20th century and the thawing of the prodigious growth rates the country had experienced during its latter half, the role of the Zigalese government in investment and foreign trade has gradually decreased. Accordingly, recent years have seen the privatization of many previously state-owned banks and industrial firms, though certain service sectors such as healthcare, education, utilities, and energy are still firmly state-funded and operated. Even so, unlike its neighbors of Hyperaustrea and Fengjiang, the Zigalese economy is centered mainly around small and medium-sized enterprises, rather than the large business groups characteristic of the Fengese corporatocratic model. This was mainly the doing of Zigala's economic development bodies, whose staunchly statist and balanced stability-oriented position on the matter of economic growth were expressed in a near-religious fixation on curbing the growth of large capitalists - domestic or foreign - and an financial policy which restricted credit allocation almost exclusively to SMEs and state-owned businesses. When such state control measures eventually loosened and privatization accelerated, the Zigalese economy found itself enjoying an almost unparalleled degree of autonomy vis-a-vis weak societal forces and pressures from interest groups, which contributed to a smaller, less diversified, and less leveraged "Big Business" sector in the country.