Economic Geography of Azazia

The economic geography of the United Kingdom illuminates the various histories of the different regions now comprising the United Kingdom’s home countries, colonies, and overseas territories. At first built upon the need for mercantilist expansion of European empires the territories of the United Kingdom blossomed into centres of manufacturing that have since given way to its most important industry: trade and finance.

Primary Sector

Agriculture

Farming

Although the Home Islands receive ample sun and rain owing to their subtropical climate, however, the rampant population growth of the 20th and early 21st centuries have greatly reduced the amount of arable land available for agriculture. Of the remaining three home countries only two boast significant land area for farming: Juristan and Kingsland, of which only Kingsland provides ample space, favourable climate, and economic incentives.

Kingsland benefits from a cool temperate climate that frequently experiences heavy precipitation falling largely in seasonal patterns. These wet versus dry seasons spurred the evolution of grain crops that, while not as hardy as crops grown in more Mediterranean climates, still provided natives with a crop that sustained sedentary agricultural civilisations. To this day, especially the southern regions near Charlotte and Port Melbourne continue to be important areas of agricultural production, though now the system is highly automated and mechanised and rather intensive.

Among the colonies, Novikov was annexed by the United Kingdom in mid 2005 ostensibly to secure the United Kingdom from an aggressive government seeking to starve the UK into submission by withholding food shipments. However, many analysts on both sides of the war saw the conflict for what it truly was: the United Kingdom’s desire to secure long-term access to comparatively cheap foodstuffs produced by a domestic market.

Fishing

For many years before the colonization of the Azazian Archipelago, Azazians made use of the Azazian Sea and the continental shelf of the archipelago for fishing. With the arrival of Spanish and English fleets, however, the fisheries fell into decline through overfishing resulting in the collapse of the native Azazian fishing industry, at one time a large proportion of the economy in areas near modern-day Caliz, Etar and even as far east as Queensbury and as far north as Regal, Port Hamptonshire and Westport.

Similarly, the situation in Juristan remains desperate as several sovereign governments control the small seas surrounding the island and so any attempt to work out agreements on fishing rights remain confounded. As of yet, Kingsland sports only a modest fishing industry, mainly off the northern coast with numerous fishing fleets based out of Port Marlton. The last home country, the Indian Islands, offer numerous fisheries but limited numbers of ports for fishery companies from which to operate and as such Port Blair is home to only a small, but highly competitive fishing centre.

Forestry

In the Home Islands, the characteristic hyper-urbanisation has resulted in a loss of most large forest areas although artificial greenbelts have begun to arise outside many major UK cities. Similarly, the highly developed home country of Juristan offers little to forestry companies as do the Indian Islands although there more owing to lack of size and unsuitable geography.

Only in Kingsland do some swaths of forest remain. It is here that Parliament has taken an interest in preserving the UK wilderness by passing legislation that heavily regulates the forestry industry. It thus comes as no surprise that most UK timber and lumber are imported from smaller, poorer countries with no such regulations on their forestry industry.

Primary Industry

Home Islands

Formerly the United Kingdom offered a great deal of natural resources to the outside world, however, one legacy of the archipelago’s colonial era is the drastically reduced mineral wealth of the Azazian Archipelago. Silver provided a large economic stimulus having been formerly mined in the mountains west of Imperium and east of Breningrad. Other deposits of silver and precious metals were also found in the west near the cities of Caliz.

Most important to the future development of the United Kingdom, however, were the iron and coal deposits found in the mountains to the east of Breningrad. The close proximity of these two resources sparked the industrial development of the eastern islands of the archipelago. Today, however, these mines are largely closed as new environmental regulations have caused continuing operations to become unprofitable.

Instead, the primary industry of the eastern islands has shifted to the tapping of vast oil and natural gas resources found in the Azazian Sea, stretching to the northwest from Churchill, New Britain up through the area near Port Hamptonshire and Westport.

Juristan

Although largely flat and devoid of significant mineral deposits, the home country of Juristan provides the UK with several large oil and natural gas fields in the northwest region of the country near the coast. Domestic investment is high, but owing to the recentness of the discovery of the fields they have yet to largely impact UK oil and gas production although that is expected to change by the end of the decade.

Kingsland

(under construction)

Secondary Industry

Home Islands

With the discovery of iron and coal reserves just outside Breningrad, the eastern islands became the industrial powerhouse of the Azazian Archipelago as the cities of Breningrad, Philadelphia, and Imperium blossomed into manufacturing powerhouses producing items from steel to ships to automobiles and later aeroplanes, industrial machinery, and other large types of equipment. Further west towards Portsmouth, Artega, Queensbury more specialized areas of manufacturing developed, owing to the lessening comparative advantage as companies moved further from the major resources of the eastern manufacturing powerhouse.

While Breningrad and Philadelphia provided heavy industrial goods, cities like Queensbury grew important for their textile works while Artega and Portsmouth became secondary shipbuilders but most importantly centres for consumer good production. To the north and east, cities such as Churchill grew to support industries linked to petrochemicals, owing to Churchill’s development as the major port and distribution terminal for oil and gas within the Archipelago.

To the east, the small amount of capital available hindered the development of heavy manufacturing until the mid 20th century, when the large corporations began to realise the rising costs of production in the east and shifted to the west, where minerals were more abundant but harder to access. By the 1970s and ‘80s the exodus of heavy industry from Breningrad, Philadelphia, and Imperium (and to a lesser extent Portsmouth, Artega, and Queensbury) signaled the beginning of the economic depression that would forever change the economic landscape of the United Kingdom.

The major cities of Breningrad and Philadelphia struggled to keep heavy industry as many companies that remained underperformed their competitors in the west except in the areas of production where skills and established infrastructure were critical, e.g. the shipbuilding and aerospace industries. Meanwhile, the electronic companies that had clustered near the former manufacturing giants moved further west to cities such as Caliz, Queensbury, and Portsmouth while the intellectual capital remained behind near the preeminent educational institutions and centre of political power for the Archipelago.

One important change is the continuing decline of Breningrad and the emergence of Philadelphia as the new economic and commercial capital of the United Kingdom. Early on the leaders of Philadelphia surrendered to the shifting centre of industry and instead began to create the necessary infrastructure for a successful post-industrial economy while Breningrad continued to fight to retain its factories. The bid between industry and post-industry is quickly resolving itself and Philadelphia appears the winner.

In the west, however, the initial gains made in cities such as Regal, Port Hamptonshire, Westport and to a lesser extent Caliz and Etar quickly were lost as the socialist governments swept into office on the coattails of the economic downturn quickly instituted policies to protect the environment and thereby hinder the development of pollutant industries in the west. Thus the continuing decline of secondary industries in the United Kingdom’s Home Islands remains a highly divisive political issue.

Juristan

Originally a highly developed manufacturing centre for the whole of Juristan, the sector governed by the United Kingdom experienced a similar shift as in the Home Islands that saw its industry move out (though long before the UK acquired the territory from Golencia.) Some specialized and high-technology manufacturing remains in the areas near Providence while petrochemical industries have developed in the northwest near the oil and gas fields.

Kingsland

(under construction)

Royal Crown Colonies

Unquestionably the largest area of manufacturing in the United Kingdom is the reemerging Novikov, which benefits from a labour pool that is cheap compared to the remainder of the United Kingdom. This in combination with its developed skill set has attracted UK capital to Novikov and ruined cities such as Poldi’sk and Grozny have begun to develop healthy and vibrant industrial centres.

Another important colony for manufacturing is that of Azazian Sarnia, where industry has begun to emerge around Port Royal and Atherton, the first for its function as the colony’s main seaport and the second for its proximity to mineral resources and the heavy private and public investment in infrastructure, such as the planned nuclear reactors that will provide the requisite energy to provide access to the surrounding aluminium mines.