User:Char/sandbox1

Republic of Charnea ⴰⵊⴰⵎⵀⵓⵔⵢⴰ ⵏ ⵛⵀⴰⵔⵏⴻⴰ Ajamhurya n Charnea
Flag
Capital and largest city	Agnannet
Official languages	None
Recognised national languages	Tamashek (de facto)
Recognised regional languages	Randeshret Tamahaq Tawellemmet Darja Udayen
Ethnic groups (2022)	70.2% Tenerians  ∟55% Kel Aɣrem  ∟15.2% Kel Ajama 14.3% Deshrians 11.1% Gharibs 3.2% Kel Udayen 1.2% Other
Demonym(s)	Charnean
Government	Unitary parliamentary military republic
• Emasli Adinat	Amina N'Akall
• Amizar	Khyar Aziouel
Legislature	Agraw Allonan
Historical Landmarks
• Ihemodian Wars	1360-1410
• Peace of Awakar	1549-1810
• Baron's War	1854-1860
• Imperial Restoration	1 August 1921
• Muttay Aljamaɣat	4 April 2023
Area
• Total Area	2,130,656 km2 (822,651 sq mi)
Population
• 2022 estimate	27,023,983
• 2020 census	26,995,572
• Density	12.68/km2 (32.8/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	estimate
• Total	$599 billion
• Per capita	$22,179.45
Gini	29.4 low
HDI	0.801 very high
Currency	Charnean Azref (₳)
Date format	mm.dd.yyyy
Driving side	right

Charnea, officially the Republic of Charnea (Tamashek: ⴰⵊⴰⵎⵀⵓⵔⵢⴰ ⵏ ⵛⵀⴰⵔⵏⴻⴰ, Ajamhurya n Charnea), is a country in central Scipia. The Ninva desert encompasses the totality of the land area of Charnea, a total of 2.1 million square kilometers of arid terrain receiving on average 7 centimeters of rain a year or less. Charnea is a landlocked country bordered to the north by Talahara, Tyreseia, and Alanahr, to the east by Fahran, Kembesa and M'biruna, to the south by Itayana, and to the west by Anyanwu. The Charnean desert is not geographically uniform and is subdivided into several regions, some of which are more or less inhospitable than others. Most human settlement in Charnea is concentrated into four relatively limited zones in the Arwa and Adjer mountains, the Achra basin and the regions of the Charnean far east known as Hatheria and Deshret. The rest of the desert, subdivided into the Tenere region in central and west Charnea and the Zahra region in the east, is ill suited for permanent habitation and is covered in dune seas, rocky pleateaus and other formations of the barren landscape.

The history of Charnea has been marked by reoccurring social upheavals and conflict over the limited resources of the desert, primarily water. The foundation of Charnea, or the Kel Kaharna as it was known contemporaneously, can be linked to the Siriwang eruption and volcanic winter in the mid 14th century, which struck the desert-dwelling peoples of Scipia in the form of climatic disruption leading to widespread famine. The Tenerian warlord Ihemod the Inheritor emerged from this period of strife, unifying the Tenerian tribes and leading them in the conquest of the neighboring states in order to claim for themselves greener pastures and more reliable water supply. This conquest would expand in scope as it unfolded until the Kel Kaharna had subjugated the majority of the Scipian continent, ruling over a population of millions at its zenith in the 15th century. Although the empire would soon loose much of its territory to rebellion, reconquest and invasion, it would remain as a rump state in the lands of its birth, deep in the Ninva desert, where it would evolve over the centuries into the modern Charnean state. In the 20th century, Charnea would undergo a process of urbanization and industrialization, facilitated by the connection of the country's far-flung oasis towns and cities with the construction of continent-spanning railway networks across Scipia. This process would bring unprecedented prosperity to the Charnean cities, although the ever expanding demands for water and other resources would lead to major internal conflicts and wars with neighboring countries such as the Agala War and the Ninvite War. In April of 2023, Charnea underwent the Muttay Aljamaɣat or Republican Reform, which overthrew the monarchic imperial system of seven centuries to install a new system of government based on a limited democracy of the army and civil services. This has been the latest in a long line of political upheavals Charnea has suffered over the course of the past century which have left their mark on Charnean society and culture.

The country is home to a mostly urbanized population of 27 million people. This urban population is highly concentrated with more than a quarter of all Charneans live in the capital city, Agnannet, with an additional third living in the next three largest cities. The urban population sustains the national economy which is based in processing the country's natural resources and manufacturing products for export on the basis of these resources. Charnean economics is heavily state driven and consolidated into a number of industrial giants with close ties to the government, such as the state owned petro-extraction and chemical firm COPEC or the nominally private but state-linked plastics manufacturing giant Plexico. A near-totality of all economic output in Charnea comes from large corporations such as these operating in the great cities. The rural population, consisting of Kel Ajama as well as ethnic and religious minority groups in the territorial periphery, lead a predominantly agrarian existence and contribute little to the economy. Charnea has been plagued by its history of slavery, apartheid and internal segregation of its population, which has had a long-lasting effect on its society and the development of its economy and has been the subject of many recent political reforms.

Government

The Agraw

The supreme power of the Republic is vested in the assembly of the Agraw Allonan, the military council constituted from elected deputies of the Charnean Army with special delegates representing select organs of the civilian government. It is the heart of the Charnean state and its military-political organization from which all legal authority stems. The Agraw serves a dual political function both as a legislative organ of the national civilian state as well as a democratic governing body of the Army. As a legislature, the Agraw functions as a unicameral lawmaking assembly with a flexible membership holding the ultimate authority to create laws, issue directives to the executive branch, and approve ministers of the state and judges of the Charnean court system. As a military organ, the Agraw satisfies the political imperative to democratize the Army and redress the grievances of the rank and file Charnean servicemembers without subverting the tenets of military discipline and hierarchical cohesion. This was done to avoid implementing a democratic system within the military itself as is done in the Talaharan military, something which the leadership of the Charnean military-political movement deemed to be potentially corrosive to the cohesion of the Army and damaging to its effectiveness as a military force. Instead, representatives of the military in the Agraw hold no authority within the military hierarchy, serving only to give a democratic voice to the servicemembers of the Army in the assembly which might then implement the general will of the Army's rank and file from the top down and in accordance with military hierarchy. As the Agraw is vested with the sole authority to declare war, this also grants exclusive power to declare war and sue for peace to the common soldiery of the Army.

The Agraw Allonan replaced the previous Agraw Imgharan, the council of elders, which had served as the bicameral legislature of the Charnean states since the time of Ihemod and was based primarily on clan membership. It a strong contrast to its predecessor, the Agraw Allonan remains true to its name (lit. "Common Assembly") as its deputies are voted into their seats by an open popular vote within each unit of the Army and civilian government organs. Voting is done through a instant-runoff system, a ranked choice system in which multiple rounds of counts of second and third-rank votes are used to determine the winner of each unit election if no candidate can win at least half of the first-rank votes. This electoral system as well as the investiture of voting power mainly in the predominantly Ajamite enlisted ranks of the Army has had the effect of almost entirely eliminating the great Charnean clans from political office, instead elevating many historically disenfranchised groups such as the Ajamites and Deshrians into the Agraw Allolan.

Leadership

Administrative authority is delegated by the Agraw into the hands of the Amizar, the principal executive and head of government of the Charnean republican system. The Amizar is vested with broad authority to carry out the will of the Agraw and to enforce the laws of the Republic through the organs of the civilian government. Amizars are elected using the same electoral system as the Agraw elections applied to an electorate-wide scale to serve five-year terms in office with a single term limit disallowing any candidate from holding the office more than once. The authority and power of the Amizar within the Republic is wide reaching, with few constitutional limitations. However, the practical limitations of the Amizarate rest with the Agraw which holds the authority to override the Amizar, issue directives and recall them from office. The recall can be triggered by a simple majority of the Agraw, which will proceed to a referendum of the full electorate, where another simple majority of the popular vote will end the sitting Amizar's term prematurely and bar them from running againt as if they had completed their term normally. An interim Amizar is then appointed by the Agraw until a full Amizarate election can be held.

The office of the Emasli Adinat is the secondary executive of the government, and the nominal head of state. This office is the product of a constitutional addendum, a later addition to the government system made in response to rising public unrest in the aftermath of the Muttay Aljamaɣat. The function of the Emasli Adinat (lit. "Public Voice") is to serve as the advocate of the general public in the government, with a mainly advisory role but a variable degree of de facto authority dependent on the public will. The first Emasli, the former monarch Amina N'Akall, was appointed by Amizar Khyar Aziouel with the approval of the Agraw, while a system of direct election open to the public was put in place to select subsequent Emaslis.

Economy

The structure of the Charnean economy follows a highly interventionist model in which the state or more commonly state-affiliated entities take on a major role in directing development. This system of Developmentalism, which has been described as a form of state capitalist, placed great economic power and financial resources in the hands of the state and state-affiliated companies controlled by members of the politically connected great clans of Charnean society. The Developmentalist approach proved to be effective through the first half of the 20th century, successfully transitioning Charnea from a purely extractive economy to a fully industrialized one with significant contributions from the manufacturing sector. During this period, Charnea saw dramatic increases in the urbanization, life expectancy, rates of literacy and education, as well as median incomes and standards of living which have risen to the level of near-parity with the more developed world. However, in its later years the high degree of consolidation and concentration of wealth within the Charnean economy as a result of the Developmentalist model has caused a variety of issues within the economy, namely a condition of industrial overspecialization, a lack of diversification, and a stagnation of median incomes, all of which has contributed to a slowdown in economic growth. These conditions have largely remained unchanged and in some cases deteriorated further through the upheaval of the Muttay Aljamaɣat, which had the additional effect of shaking investor confidence in the Charnean economy, despite the Republic's efforts to break up the conglomerates and decrease the level of consolidation of the major businesses in Charnea. Escaping the current era of stagnation and safeguarding the advances in standards of living is the self-declared first priority of the Republic's government, and represents a major political imperative.

Mining

Nagamina gold mine in near-eastern Charnea

Resource extraction and processing represents over a third of Charnea's total economic activity and is a highly developed sector of the economy. Mining was the catalyst which kicked off the industrialization of Charnea's desert society, providing the financial impetus for the expansion of the nationwide railway network which was critical to the later stages of urbanization and industrialization and largely enabled the development of the modern Charnean state. By far the most lucrative type of extraction in Charnea is gold mining, which accounts for one fifth (20%) of the national GDP. Gold mining has a long history in Charnea, being one of the main economic activities of the medieval Charnean states and by far the most important export of pre-modern Charnea, dwarfing the value of the dye and salt trade. Today, the largest mine in Charnea is the Nagamina open-pit mine in the western reaches of Adjer province, which was originally a copper mine in which gold was extracted as a byproduct. Some 22,500 kilograms of gold have been extracted from Nagamina to date, alongside nearly 100,000 metric tons of copper ores as well as 100 kilograms of silver, making it one of the largest known mineral deposits in Scipia.Other important gold mines in Charnea include the Mother-and-Son mine and the Karukwar mine, both located in the southern Agala region of Charnea. These are quartz reef deposits which are mined through a system of underground tunnels, in contrast to the open-pit system of the Nagamina mine. All of these gold mines, however, use the same widely accepted processing techniques to extract pure gold from the ores taken out of the earth. These processing techniques are the subject of major controversy as they threaten the local water tables with cyanide and mercury contamination, making the highly lucrative extraction business a threat to the security of the water supply and a highly divisive matter in the water politics debate.

The mineral wealth of Charnea is concentrated in the Adjer range stretching across Gangara, Ouedmaqqor and the eponymous Adjer province, which forms the bulk of the Adjer-Tenere igneous province. The entire region is home to a variety of important ores bearing a wealth of industrial metals including gold, iron and copper. In recent years, exploration of the region's geological formations has revealed deposits of Laurite, a mineral ore containing ruthenium, osmium, and iridium, which are rare elements highly sought after in the electronics industry, in addition to some amounts of iron and rhodium. Extraction of Laurite in the Harakez valley some 140 kilometers south of Azut began in 2020. The economic potential of Laurite extraction is mostly untapped and represents a potentially lucrative new horizon for the future expansion of the Charnean mining sector.

Tamse refinery in Agnannet, COPEC's largest petrochemical plant

Petroleum extraction makes up another significant component of the Charnean mineral wealth. There are two main oil producing regions in the country, located in the far east and the far western regions of the country. The eastern fields, located in the provinces of Saadia, Hatheria and Zahra, have far larger proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas. However, the eastern regions have suffered from long standing political instability, economic underdevelopment and were the main active front of the Ninvite War some decades past. The destruction of extraction and refining infrastructure by war along with the continuing instability in the region and the threat of the Azdarin Liberation Front has greatly limited and curtailed investment in oil and gas extraction in the region. Conversely, the western fields located mainly in Azalay province are far better explored and have much more infrastructure in place, making them much more economically valuable despite having only a fraction of the reserves of the eastern fields. Oil extraction and processing in Charnea has been nationalized since 1945, consolidated as part of the state-owned energy giant COPEC. Despite the size of the petro-industry in Charnea, the export of oil and gas only accounts for 3% of GDP and less than half of COPEC's yearly earnings. The majority of the oil and gas extracted by COPEC are destined for domestic use primarily as refined petrochemical products needed by many industrial firms in the massive plastics industry in Charnea, as well as the Charnean energy market. 80% of all electricity in Charnea is generated in gas-fired power plants with an additional 16% being generated in power plants burning heavy oil. Both of these fuel types are supplied almost exclusively by COPEC, and the generation plants are themselves owned by a COPEC subsidiary.

Demographics

Religion

Religion in Charnea
Religion			Percent
Ashni Addin			71%
Coptic Nazarism			8%
Judaism			2%
Timal Ibaran			12%
Other			2%

Sitting at the confluence of the Scipian interior, Charnea is and has always been a religiously diverse place. Temples of the ancient Deshrian religion are among the oldest surviving manmade structuctures in Charnea, and indeed the entire world. A large number of Deshrians today follow the Coptic sect of Nazarism originating in Tyreseia. An older Abrahamic faith, Judaism first appeared in the lands of Charnea some time during the reign of Queen Kaharna in the 5th century BCE, in the form of exiles fleeing the land today known as Yisrael. According to surviving jewish texts from this era, the exiles were welcomed by the Amazigh Queen and granted refuge in the desert cities of old Tamazgha. These Charnean jews would, over the ensuing millenia, the community could become concentrated in the central Charnean regions of Achra and the White Desert. The modern population of these Charnean Jews, termed Kel Udayen in the local dialect, is over 1 million. A comparatively much more recent religious introduction but one no less relevant than its ancient counterparts was the first appearance of the White Path, a Mutulese religion propagated in Charnea by a semi-mythical figure known as the Desert Oracle in the 17th century. The White Path, or Timal Ibaran as it is known in Tamashek, experienced a rapid increase in popularity, secretly encouraged by the rulers of the Awakari Empire, today becoming the second largest religion in Charnea and fostering close cultural ties to otherwise distant Mutul. The final, largest and newest Charnean religion is Ashni Addin, the "Blood Doctrine", seeing its origin in the early 18th century as a syncretic religious movement of White Pilgrim Tenerians. Ashniism combines cosmological, philosophical and theological aspects primarily of the White path and Neterism, but also influences of Ashkan Judaism and Azdarin and even ancient Tenerian folk religion. It grew extremely quickly amongst the Ajamite and Aɣremite populations in Charnea, rapidly becoming the majority religion by the end of the 18th and begining of the 19th centuries and retaining this title to the present day, having even converted portions of the Gharib and Deshrian populace from their traditional ethnic religions. This Charnean interpretation of the White Path is by far the majority of the Sakbeists in the country, while the remaining adherents of the more orthodox Mutli version are termed Shaddijnen or "Puritans" and are mainly found among the more militaristic of the Kel Ajama.