Alexandria Territory

Alexandria Territory
Flag
Alexandria Territory, with major cities and the Cordelia Federal District.
Country	Meridon
Capital	Port Sistine
Largest city	Cordelia
Territory	July 3, 1640
Government
• Type	Parliamentary
• Body	Alexandria Territorial Council
• Chief Minister	Ria Kawakami (LIB)
Population
• Total	120,263,787

Alexandria is a territory of Meridon, bound primarily to Alexandria Island and its outlying minor islands, including the southeastern Amber Islands. It is bordered to the west by the Southern Islands territory, to the south by Ohawe Territory and Mahine Territory, and to the east by Helena Territory and Smith Island Territory. The capital and largest city of the territory, not counting the Cordelia Federal District, is Port Sistine, with other notable cities being Alanstown, Cossetton, Amber Coast, Carterstown, and Vincents. Alexandria Territory is home to over 100 million people, and is the largest and most populous island in Meridon.

Alexandria has been inhabited the longest of any island in the Meridonian archipelago, with evidence of habitation being carbon-dated to as far as 6,000 years ago with evidence of preserved sailing materials and domiciles by ancient Tangaran cultures. Tangaran tribal cultures operated in a variety of communities and groups until the 1500s. From 1554 and the arrival of European settler groups, native presence was gradually reduced until it was almost totally eradicated in the 1582-1558 First Colonial War when settler groups massacred or drove off the vast majority of native populations from the island. Alexandria was the driving force during the industrialization of the archipelago, and has remained its most populous throughout its incorporation into the Federal Republic. Alexandria urbanized heavily from the late 19th to the mid 20th century and is one of the most urbanized islands in Meridon, with roughly 65% of the population living in urban centers.

Alexandria is host to expansive agricultural and industrial ventures. It is home to the headquarters to some of its most prominent companies, including the Tarass-Ortum Motor Company, Blackriver Industrial, Eureka, and Silkroad. Alexandria is famous for its coffee and cocoa production- the Copperpoint Blend harvested from beans cultivated on Copperpoint Mountain are served in coffeehouses globally. Alexandria's economy is highly diversified, and has the largest economic output of any Meridonian territory. Alexandria also has large-scale agricultural ventures focused inland and to the southern end of the island, which produce large amounts of wheat, grains, and livestock.

Etymology

Alexandria Territory derives its name from Alessandro Verraci, an !Italian explorer who is credited by some explorers as having initially discovered the island in 1554- although this claim is contested with some historians citing !English explorer Richard Tafts as having discovered the island. Early cartographers referenced the island as Allesandra or Isla Allesandra.. Settlers into the city-state era generally referred to the island as Alessandra or Isla Allessandra, referred to in scholastic texts as Alexandria, a name which eventually stuck.

Politics

Government

Government in Alexandria is organized into parliament, the executive, and the judicial system. As a Meridonian federal territory its relation with other territories is governed by the Articles of Federation. The capital of the territory is in Port Sistine, where all branches of government are based. As is common with other electoral systems in Meridon, Alexandria uses a single transferable voting system in its elections.

Alexandria Territory is one of five Meridonian territories including Silvers Island, Smith Island,Kalua, and Helena to use a parliamentary system of government, where legislative support is required for a government to remain in power. The Alexandria Territorial Council meets in the Robert E. Manting Territorial Council Building in Port Sistine.

Executive branch

The executive branch of the Alexandria territorial government is headed by the Chief Minister, who concurrently serves as the head of an elected political party's Alexandria territorial branch. Whichever party has the most seats in the Territorial Council will form a government either by itself or with parties in coalition. With the assent and approval of the Territorial Council, the Chief Minister will appoint # executive officers: A Vice Chief Minister, a Chief Secretary, Chief Comptroller, Territorial Treasurer, Chief Judicial Officer, and Chief of the Territorial Educational Department. The Chief Minister also directly appoints without Council approval a myriad list of heads of executive offices, departments, and groups. Most of these groups are overseen by a 'supraoffice', which organizes and manages entities performing broader functions such as healthcare, financial services, transportation, et cetera; into more cohesive groupings. These agencies are created, maintained and deestablished with the consent and authority of the Territorial Council. Executive office holders are term-limited to three terms of three years, although they may continue to serve as members of the Territorial Council given they are re-elected.

The current Chief Minister of Alexandria is Ria Kawakami, a member of the Liberal Party who was elected in 202X.

Legislative branch

Robert E. Manting Territorial Council Building in Port Sistine is the seat of the Alexandria Territorial Council.

The Alexandria Territorial Council is the parliamentary legislature of the Territory, consisting of a unicameral body of 223 of Councilmen/Councilwomen, also referred to by the postnomial of Member of Territorial Council (MTC) or more specifically as Member of Territorial Council Alexandria (MTCA), as differentiated from Member of Council (MC) reserved for members of the Meridonian Federal Council. All members of the Territorial Council are elected for three-year terms, but do not have term limits. Alexandria has a mandatory retirement age for MTCs of 85. Each district is allocated two MTCAs with an additional MTCA allocated for population count in increments of one representative for 800,000 people.

Currently, the Liberal Party holds coalition government power in Alexandria.

Judicial branch

The territorial judicial system of Alexandria is the largest of the eleven territories, comprising of over 1,000 judges. Courts are maintained at the territorial, circuit, district, and municipality levels, and are overseen by the Alexandria Judicial Commission, which is headed by the Chief Judicial Officer. The Territorial supreme courts are two-faceted, consisting of the Territorial Court of Justice for civil and criminal cases and Territorial Audit Court for constitutional and legislative review.

Alexandria, along with Helena and Mahine Territories, are the only territories in Meridon that do not perform capital punishments.

Economy

Sistine Harbor, located in Port Sistine, is the largest harbor by import volume in Meridon and one of the principal ports in the country.

Alexandria is Meridon's largest territory by economic output, owing to a robust and diversified economy, a relatively large workforce, and land area and population both being much larger than any other territory in Meridon. Alexandria accounts for about 46% of Meridon's economic output by gross domestic product. Alexandria's work force in 2020 was reported as 67,799,410 among 3,389,970 individual employer establishments.

Alexandria's position as the northwestern anchor of the archipelago means that it handles a lion's share of trade inbound from the west. Alexandria is home to the largest and third-largest ports in Meridon, those being Sistine Harbor in Port Sistine and the Port of Alanstown, which are collectively responsible for 55% of seaborne imports to Meridon.

The five largest sectors of employment in Alexandria were trade and transport utilities; professional and business occupations; government, health and education services; industry and manufacturing; and service and hospitality. By economic output, the five largest were trade; financial services; manufacturing; government services; and agriculture. Alexandria has an unemployment rate of 2.2 as of July 2022.

Alexandria's economy is deeply intertwined with global trade for close to a fifth of the territory's economy. In 2004, Alexandria exported over half a trillion dollars in goods for the first time.

Agriculture

Vinyards in Carterplain District. Alexandria Territory is one of the foremost producers of wine in the world.

Alexandria is home to a variety of agriculture ventures, and by volume has the highest agricultural output of all Meridonian territories. Alexandrian agriculture has historically been extremely varied and dictated by the availability of irrigation and rainfall to certain locales, with most agricultural production centered on southern and western portions of the island. Alexandrian country land is primarily utilized for the production of livestock, cotton, soybeans, tobbaco, vegetables and herbs, olives and grapes, coffee, tea, cocoa, and fruit-bearing trees such as apple trees. Although it produces tropical goods such as coffee and cocoa in relatively limited quantities, Alexandrian luxury goods are world-renowned as high-quality. The Copperpoint Blend of coffee beans is known for its rich and well-developed flavor and is popular in coffeehouses worldwide. Alexandria is also one of the largest producers of products such as olive oil and wine in the known world. Alexandria's agricultural sector accounts for roughly 8% of its GDP and employs five percent of its workforce.

Geography

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  Weaver Federal Nature Reserve in TBD Northwestern Alexandria Territory.

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  A cattle station in southern Alexandria.

Culture

Alexandria's culture is a mix of most major Colonial-era ethnic and religious groups synthesized under a larger Anglian influence. As is true elsewhere in Meridon, many towns have adopted Anglian names, but some locales still use certain non-Anglian dialects.

As the largest territory both by population and landmass, and the oldest and arguably most historically significant, Alexandrian cultural influences ripple into the influence of all other territories, especially those who were settled prior to the foundation of the Federal Republic by city-states. By and large, Alexandria is home to a lion's share of institutes of cultural significance. Most of Meridon's major performing arts companies are based in Alexandria, including the Cossette Orchestral Symposium based in Cossetton, the Sistine Opera Company and the Marinan Ballet company, both based in Port Sistine. Despite their relatively large gap in population and size in the modern day, Port Sistine and Cossetton are considered the "two pearls" of classical Meridonian performing arts, heavily influenced by aristocratic influences from their countries of origin.

A wide variety of major federal museums exist in Alexandria's large facilities, including the Meridonian Museum, the Cossette Fine Art Conservancy Center, the Meridonian Aerospace Museum, and the multiple museums of the Bruegat Institute as well as a majority of its research centers. The Alexandrian Tangaran Museum in Newcastle is the only major museum and institute in Meridon dedicated to the preservation and research of the tribes that once inhabited the island.

Many coastal cities, in particular Cossetton and Port Sistine, have large amounts of historically and architecturally significant buildings, including the TBD.

See Also

Territorial Maps

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  Terrain map

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  Districts

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  Districts and cities

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  Districts and terrain

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  Districts, cities, and roads

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  Terrain, cities, and roads

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  Terrain, districts, cities, roads