Ukun Rasikan
The largest city in Tanah Burung and home to all foreign embassies, Ukun Rasikan lies midway along the country's coast.
It was founded as a small fishing village, before becoming a sea resort for the Sultan of Burung Paradis. With the coming of the Knootian East India Company it became the centre of the Knootian East Indies. Named New Hoorn after the first colonial Governor's home town, it still bears the stamp of colonial architecture, at least in its centre, sprawling between the Canal and the Brantas River. After the end of the colonial period, the city was renamed Ukun Rasikan, the Tetemelayu word for "independence." However, nationalists did not allow it to stay the capital, choosing instead to rotate that honour among the capitals of the six provinces.
Liberation Square and the Governor's palace
Ukun Rasikan is anchored on its southern, canal side by the Green Palace, the old Sultan's palace that is now the headquarters of the foreign ministry, and the embassies that sprawl inland along Canal Street. At the centre are the red-brick buildings of Liberation Square and the Cathedral. By the river's mouth, the spacious grounds of Lovefest University anchor the city's northern end. And all around, whitewashed houses and apartment tenaments, thin towers and the steeples of churches extend the city in all directions towards the fertile rice paddy terraces of the countryside. A little inland, in the newer city, is the maglev terminus that connects the city to Loro Sae and the land of Brazillico beyond it in one direction, Burung-yang-membuat-dunia and the Bureaucratic States of Oglethorpia in the other. Standard rail trains ran west to the interior and the Empire of Eauz in the high plateau at the centre of the continent.
The Rasikani, as locals are known, pride themselves on their cosmopolitanism and hospitality. A guide from the Sunny Tanah Burung Trade and Tourism Bureau will be sure to offer visitors a cup of milky clove coffee and show off batik cloth in the brilliant blue for which the city's textiles were known. The city's most famous resident is the diplomat Violeta Bi Bere.
