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Map of the Land of Oz, the fictional country in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
File:Maps-sodor-railways-amoswolfe.png
Map of the fictional island of Sodor used in the Thomas the Tank Engine stories
Fictitious countries used in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
A guidebook produced about the fictional country Molvanîa

A fictional country is a country that is made up, and does not exist in real life. Fictional lands appear most commonly as settings or subjects of literature or of movies.

Fictional countries appear commonly in stories of early science fiction (or scientific romance). Such countries supposedly form part of the normal Earth landscape although not located in a normal atlas. Later similar tales often took place on fictional planets.

Jonathan Swift's protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver, visited various strange places. Edgar Rice Burroughs placed adventures of Tarzan in areas in Africa that, at the time, remained mostly unknown to the West and to the East. Isolated islands with strange creatures and/or customs enjoyed great popularity in these authors' times. When Western explorers had surveyed most of the Earth's surface, this option was lost to Western culture. Thereafter fictional utopian and dystopian societies tended to spring up on other planets or in space, whether in human colonies or in alien societies originating elsewhere.

Superhero and secret agent comics and some thrillers also use fictional countries as backdrops. Most of these countries exist only for a single story, a TV-series episode or an issue of a comic book. There are notable exceptions, such as Marvel Comics Latveria and DC Comics Qurac and Bialya.

Purpose

Fictional countries often deliberately resemble or even represent some real-world country or present a utopia or dystopia for commentary. Variants of the country's name sometimes make it clear what country they really have in mind. (Compare semi-fictional countries below.) By using a fictional country instead of a real one, authors can exercise greater freedom in creating characters, events, and settings, while at the same time presenting a vaguely familiar locale that readers can recognize. A fictional country leaves the author unburdened by the restraints of a real nation's actual history, politics, and culture, and can thus allow for greater scope in plot construction.

Writers may create an archetypal fictional "Eastern European", "Middle Eastern", "Asian", "African" or "Latin American" country for the purposes of their story.

Such countries often embody stereotypes about their regions. For example, inventors of a fictional Eastern European country will typically describe it as a former or current Soviet satellite state, or with a suspense story about a royal family; if pre-20th century, it will likely resemble Ruritania or feature copious vampires and other supernatural phenomena. A fictional Middle Eastern state often lies somewhere on the Arabian peninsula, has substantial oil-wealth and problems with radical Islam and will either a sultan or a mentally-unstable dictator as a ruler. A fictional Latin American country will typically project images of a banana republic beset by constant revolutions, military dictatorships, and coups d'état. A fictional African state will suffer from poverty, civil war and disease.

Modern writers usually do not try to pass off their stories as facts. However, in the early 18th century George Psalmanazar passed himself off as a prince from the island of Formosa (present-day Taiwan) and wrote a fictional description about it to convince his sponsors.

Some larcenous entrepreneurs have also invented fictional countries solely for the purpose of defrauding people. In the 1820s, Gregor MacGregor sold land in the invented country of Poyais. In modern times, the Dominion of Melchizedek and the Kingdom of EnenKio have been accused of this. Many varied financial scams can play out under the aegis of a fictional country, including selling passports and travel documents, and setting up fictional banks and companies with the seeming imprimatur of full government backing.

List of fictional countries

Main article: List of fictional countries

Fictional works describe all the countries in the following list as located somewhere on the surface of the Earth as we know it — as opposed to inside the planet, on another world, or during a different "age" of the planet (see below).

Note: for inclusion in this list, the country should be notable enough to have a separate article. See List of fictional countries for a longer list.

Lands in Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tarzan had adventures in:

Lands in the Simpsons comic books

Lands in the Tintin stories by Hergé

The Adventures of Tintin involve the following imaginary states:

Lands in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Lemuel Gulliver stumbled upon:

Lands inside the Earth

See also Hollow Earth.

Lands of Robert E. Howard

While the map of Earth in the "Hyborian Age" differs markedly from today's, some of Howard's fictional, ancient countries obviously serve as ancestors of historical ones.

...and others.

Lands of Arda and Middle-earth

Though J. R. R. Tolkien indicated that he intended Arda to represent our Earth in a previous age, sometimes few correspondences exist between modern landmasses and countries and those of Arda. The following countries, areas or regions feature on the continent Middle-earth:

See also the category Realms of Middle-earth.

Lands of the DC Comics universe

Lands of the Marvel Comics universe

Not on Earth

These countries do not exist on our Earth, but on another planet (or in another universe). Some are planets unto themselves.

Midkemia

A world created by Raymond E. Feist.

Narnia Universe

A world created by C. S. Lewis.

See also List of places in The Chronicles of Narnia

Semi-fictional countries

Some lands exist uneasily on the borderlands of fiction and fact, of imagination and reality. There follows a list of places with a real counterpart, but which in romantic/poetic imagination or nationalist fervour or historical dimmed memory can become "other". Note that a Latinate name may conjure up visions of (questionable) past grandeur.

In the 1991 film King Ralph, Finland (which is a republic) is portrayed as a Kingdom with a Royal Family.

Franchise nations from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash

  • The Alps
  • Brickyard Station
  • Caymans Plus
  • Dixie Traditionals
  • Meadowvale on the (river)
  • Metazania
  • The Mews At Windsor Heights
  • Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong
  • Narcolombia
  • New South Africa
  • Nova Sicilia
  • Pickett's Plantation
  • Rainbow Heights
  • Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates
  • White Columns

Questionable cases

Countries from stories, myths, legends, that some people have believed to actually exist

Books

Excellent book; includes details of inhabitants, government structure, and sightseeing tips. Does not cover off-planet locations.
  • Brian Stableford: The Dictionary of Science Fiction Places

See also

External links

Category: