Zacapican

United Zacapine Republics Cepan Tlacatlatocayome Zacapiyotl Iámendu Uniachá Zakapikoni
Flag State Emblem
Capital	Quitzapatzaro
Largest city	Angatahuaca
Official languages	Nahuatl Purépecha
Ethnic groups	See Ethnicity
Demonym(s)	Zacapitec, Zacapine
Government	Federal semi-presidential republic
• Tepachoani	Zianya Xcaret
• Huetetlacualtiani	Tizaro Sesasi
Legislature	Necentlatiloyan
Area
• Total	1,845,600 km2 (712,600 sq mi)
Population
• 2022 census	70,103,619
GDP (nominal)	estimate
• Total	$2.105 trillion
• Per capita	$30,031
HDI (2019)	0.888 very high
Currency	Amatl
Driving side	right

Zacapican, formally the United Zacapine Republics (Nahuatl: Cepan Tlacatlatocayome Zacapiyotl, CTZ), is is a country located in southern Oxidentale bordered to the north by Kayahallpa and Yadokawona, to the east by the Ooreqapi ocean, to the south by the Amictlan ocean, and to the west by the Makrian ocean. It is a federation of nine constituent republics and one federal district governing a population of 70 million inhabiting a territory of 1.8 million square kilometers across the southern reaches of the continent and several outlying islands and archipelagos. The largest city is Angatahuaca with a population of 10 million located in the Aztaco Republic while the national capital and third largest city is Quitzapatzaro with a population of 4 million located in the Autonomous Federal District. The Zacapine population is made of more than two dozen distinct native ethnicities and foreign nationalities, however the largest by far are the Nahuas followed by the Purépecha. Nahuatl is the lingua franca across all of the nations and tribes across the country while the predominant Nahua-Purépecha coalition forms the historical and cultural cement bindind the disparate groups of Zacapian together.

The Zacapine economy is built on the mixed market Calpollist model, a system that has been categorized a hybrid of capitalism and communalism. Although it originated as an agrarian system, the modern Industrial Calpollism focuses predominantly on heavy industry and manufacturing and the development of an export oriented economy based in the secondary sector. Zacapican is the third of the Oxidentale economic giants and takes up a large global share of many industries, chiefly shipbuilding, aviation and the machine industry. Significant iron, coal and copper rescources in northern and central Zacapican have facilitated a strong steel and copper products industry which primarily supplies the many manufacturing centers across the country with their raw materials. A significant portion of the energy rescources and industrial materials consumed by the Zacapine economy are imported from its main trading partners in Malaio and the Ozeros nations, as well as the neighboring states of Oxidentale, while finished Zacapine exports have a more global reach. Zacapican possesses an advanced technology sector and is a world leader in aerospace and nuclear engineering.

History

{Aztapamatlan a medieval republic ruled by the two Cuauhtlatoani "Eagle Rulers" (Consuls), under the Cuauhtlatolo, the "Eagle Rule" or government by military elite.}

Geography

Biodiversity

The Ahuatetz, a penguin species unique to southern Zacapican

The varied environments of the United Zacapine Republics house an abundance of life including many unique species found nowhere else. Zacapican is a megadiverse country with a large number and variation of distinct ecosystems and biomes ranging from sub-tropical forest, wetlands, temperate, dry and cold steppes, mountains, semi-arid and even polar climate regions. The eastern Ayomazaco and Xochicuahuico Republic boast a tremendous degree of diversity in fauna including the Capybara, Zacaco deer, Maned wolf and Ñandu. Central and western regions of the Cuauhtlaco and Zacapican Republic are home to the Spectacled bear, the Puma and the Guanaco while Xallipan Republic is known for its many species of scorpions and the Vicuña which often used as a mascot by Zacapine children's media. The Fishtail peninsula is better known for the species of the surrounding waters, but is nevertheless recognized for such unique species as the Southern river otter and varied avian species such as the Aztlacapalltli woodpecker. The Valley of Zacapican the Zacapican Republic is a flat grassland with little forest cover which is naturally sparse in native tree species. One of these few tree varieties native to the valley is the Ombu now common as an ornamental species across the United Republics in urban centers prized for its rapid growth and wide canopy providing ample shade. Norumbrian sycamore and a number of coniferous species have been introduced into the valley from other regions of Zacapican and from abroad in order to provide a local supply of wood, as the native Ombu has a soft, spongy trunk and does not produce true wood. The many mountain ranges, plateaus and hills found all across Zacapican are heavily forested by pines and other evergreens such as the native Araucaria tree with such regions as Tlaximallico becoming centers of logging to meet the economic need for good timber.

In addition to terrestrial life, Zacapican is known for its abundant maritime biology sustained by highly fertile polar waters. An abundance of plankton and krill in Zacapine waters and parts of the surrounding ocean sustains not only a tremendous number and variety of fish species, but also larger and iconic marine species including penguins, seals and whales. The Orca, a common sight on Zacapine shores, is particularly prevalent in local cultures and is regarded as a Zacapitec national symbol. The extremely rich marine ecosystem of Zacapican's waters has sustained an extensive fishing industry particularly within the world-renowned Zacapine Sea Fishery off the country's eastern shore. This fishery specifically has suffered from overfishing historically, but is considered to be in the process of recovering its normal fish stocks thanks to fishing restrictions put in place by the Zacapine government for the express purpose of regenerating the economically important Teeming Sea Fishery. Historically, many Zacapitec mariners undertook whaling as a means to exploit the abundance of Minke, Humpback, Sei and Cachalot whales. In response to the depletion of these species and the decline in economic demands for baleen and whale oil, whaling of any type has been strictly prohibited by federal law since 1910.

Government and Politics

{The national government is operates under a dual executive system headed by a directly elected Tepachoani and the Huetetlacualtiani who is elected by the legislature, while its constituent states are single executive republics under Tlayacapixqui governors.}

Economy

Agriculture

Industrial cultivation of maize in eastern Aztapamatlan

Maize and potato agriculture is the basis of Zacapine agriculture, with the country being internally divided between highland areas in the interior which depend on the potato as their staple and the coastal plains and foothills regions as well as the Valley of Zacapican where extensive maize agriculture can be found. Crops found alongside these staples include beans, tomatoes, chilies, cassava and squash. All of these crops are indigenous to Oxidentale and were either domesticated in or introduced to Zacapican over the course of thousands of years of history and migration, and remain the principle staples of the Zacapine diet and the myriad local cuisines found across the country. Much of the agricultural activities aimed at food production are based on the system of the traditional communal farm, which over time evolved into ownership and labor model today known as Calpollism. Under this system, the land is held in common and usufruct rights are granted to members of the local community to cultivate sectors of this common land. This traditional calpulli is found primarily in the rural regions of the country, while the industrial Calpollist model is employed to modern mass agriculture in the country's more intensively cultivated arable land such as the central Valley of Zacapican. In the most intensely cultivated lands these is high production of maize as well as sunflowers, soybeans, flax and sorghum which are used to produce edible oils and for the production of biofuels on an industrial scale. Livestock such as chickens, pigs, cattle and sheep are also raised in the hills of northern and central Aztapamatlan using the industrially produced oilseed plants as well as available pasture for animal feed. A minor component of the agricultural sector is the production of wood and paper products through logging, which was originally based on the dense forests in the Xochicuahuico and Tlaximallico Republics but has since largely transitioned to tree plantations operated on land already cleared of natural woodlands. Intensive cultivation of monocultures of specially selected species, generally of conniferous tree varieties, allows these plantations to produce a large quantity of timber for wood and paper products in a short amount of time and is considered more sustainable as well as more economically sound than the continued harvesting of the now limited regions of natural old growth forests.

Fishing, which is considered a part of the agricultural sectors, is a major industry in Zacapican and contributes to nearly one third of all food production within the United Republics. Much of this fishing takes place in the Teeming Sea fishery off the eastern coast of the country, although Zacapine fishing vessels have ventured further and further afield across the Makrian and Ooreqapi oceans in response to declining fish stocks of the Teeming Sea and the corresponding government restrictions. Sardines and anchovies are fished, while shortfin squid and hake are approaching status as overfished. The Teeming Sea Saurel is overfished. Southern bluefin and Yellowfin tuna are highly sought after by those fishing vessels that venture into the open oceans beyond the coastal fisheries of Zacapican. The average Zacapine consumes around 25 kilograms of fish every year, making it one of the largest per capita consumers in the world. Increasingly, even the well developed Zacapine fishing industry is not able to meet mounting demand and fish as well as other seafood such as crustaceans must be imported from other countries or fishing contracted out to foreign fishing firms. The fishing industry makes up three quarters of the economic contribution of the agricultural sector and is far more luctrative relative to the size of its labor force than the cultivation and tending activities taking place on the mainland.

Manufacturing

A blast furnace and steel production facility outside Angatahuaca, Aztaco Republic

Production of manufactured goods makes up the bulk of the Zacapine economy by GDP and percentage of the national workforce employed in these secondary sector. Development of industrial manufacturing in the United Republics began in the early 20th century with the expansion of steel production and subsequent diversification of machine producing factories and mechanical works through the 1910s and 1920s. The mainstay of the manufacturing sector remains the production of mechanical components, metal products and machines used in other industrial sectors and factories. Much of the industrial equipment used in Zacapican is itself manufactured in the United Republics, while such products are also widely exported to the industrial economies of the wider world. Simple assembly has for the most part been replaced across country by more complex manufacturing, particularly of engines, vehicles, aircraft and ships. In particular, Zacapican is one of the world leaders in the manufacturing of oceangoing vessels, which is done in large assembly facilities producing prefabricated sections to be transported to a building dock to be assembled into a completed ship. The United Republics produce container, bulk carrier, tanker and ro-ro ships for commerical use by domestic and foreign firms. Shipbuilding activities are widespread in the country's many major port cities and directly or indirectly employs two in every seven Zacapine citizens. State owned manufacturers are also involved in the production of warships for the Zacapine navy as well as international military clients. Besides the manufacture of components for the international market, often components for more complex vehicles and machines, a number of motor vehicles and aircraft are additionally manufactured in the United Republics. Auto industry factories are well established in the interior urban centers of the country since the mid 1950s, while the growth of aeronautics industry was initially spurred by the Zacapine space program and would only develop into a conventional Calpollist industrial sector in the late 1980s.

The Zacapine manufacturing sector is itself focused primarily on products intended for industry. With the exception of shipbuilding, finished vehicles, aircraft and other such completed products make up a small portion of the sector. Instead, most of the products produced in the United Republics are intermediate components or machinery to be exported and used by foreign industrial firms. Another large section of the manufacturing industries in Zacapican is metallurgical, producing the necessary steel and other metal alloys to be used in the manufacturing process, while specific strategic rescources such as lithium, coltan and nickel are imported from other countries to facilitate industrial processes. A small but lucrative subsector of manufactruing in Zacapican is high tech manufacturing, in particular the Semiconductor industry consolidated under the Centlaxotlaltica corporation chip foundries. While the costs of entry into high tech manufacturing are too high for many industrial calpolli to be able to afford, the high profitability of the semiconductor and other high technology industries is expected to draw larger calpolli conglomerates into these sectors in the near future.

Energy

  Nuclear (75%)

  Hydroelectric (11%)

  Natural gas (7%)

  Wind (3%)

  Solar (2%)

  Other (2%)

Electric power generated in the United Republics is a valuable local export in southern Oxidentale, where it is sold across the northern border to Kayahallpa and in particular Yadokawona. Electricity generation in Zacapican is centralized under Cenikpitikayotl corporation, an anonymous limited company under majority ownership by the government of Zacapican. Cenikpitikayotl does not have a total monopoly in the energy sector in Zacapican, but remains the largest energy corporation by far in part thanks to government subsidies for its operations. Electricty arrived in Zacapican relatively late, first appearing in the 1890s and still not reaching many rural regions of the mountainous interior until the mid 1930s. When it finally began to expand, the electrification of the country was accomplished thanks to coal and gas-fired power stations. Coal stations would fall in popularity as the coal supply was prioritized for industrial uses, while natural gas popularity would decline severely following the 1969 Angatahuaca Blackout and the global oil crisis of the early 1970s which drove electricty prices in Zacapican to astronomical levels. After these crises, companies like Cenikpitikayotl received major financial incentive to establish alternative power infrastructure for which nuclear was favored as a stable, year round source of energy which could increase or reduce production based on market conditions rather than being reliant on environmental conditions like other renewables. The first nuclear reactor, the now famous Angatahuaca-Chapulco Power Station, began operation in 1981 and would soon be joined by dozens more supplying the enormous energy demands of the large coastal urban centers of the United Republics. Today, there are a total of 61 nuclear reactors in Zacapican. Hydroelectricty takes up the position of distant second in terms of power generation in Zacapican and is especially common in the north and interior regions where it is based on small hydroelectric dams in the high altitude valleys which supply power to otherwise isolated regions that are too sparsely populated to justify an independent nuclear station and too geographically isolated by difficult terrain to rely entirely on grid connections from elsewhere which could be severed. The mountain dams themselves also serve to regulate the flow of seasonal snow melt and rainwater downstream and supply fresh water to the environs year round.

Electricty from the grid is widely used to power transportation systems such as metros, trams and both passenger and freight trains which have undergone sweeping conversion from diesel to electric over efficiency concearns. Zacapican is an outlier of Oxidentale in that its motor vehicles, namely cars and trucks, continue to operate gasoline and diesel engines as opposed to the electric vehicles commonplace elsewhere on the continent. This is primarily due to the high cost of lithium which makes the powerful batteries of electric vehicles prohibitively expensive for the Zacapine market. Vehicle owners in Zacapican continue to show preference to gas and diesel powered personal vehicles due to their low cost and longevity compared to expensive electric vehicles which often have a shorter shelf life. Because of this, the scheme of energy used for transport is a mixture of electric powered freight, passenger rail and urban public transportation, contrasted with urban and rural personal transportation which relies more on hydrocarbon fuels. Due in part to this latter demand, some domestic companies have emerged to supply bio-diesel produced from sorghum, corn and miscellaneous plant matter produced by the agricultural sector. Biodiesel has in the past served as an attractive and domestically made alternative to foreign petroleum fuels, particularly when market disruptions cause international oil prices to fluctuate. The biofuels sector also serves to meet demand for heating, which has remained largely based on gas or gas-alternative biofuel rather than the more expensive electric heating alternative.

Transportation

National Route 30 traversing Amegatlan Seaport and the Amegatlan-Angatahuaca international airport

The transportation scheme found across the United Republics is heavily influenced by the Calpollist development model that has shaped the expansion of its urban and industrial centers. The main byproduct of the widely dispersed and sprawling urban centers created by the modern industrial Calpolli and the urban society organized around it has been the continued dominance of the automobile for both urban and rural transportation, while the role of metro, light rail and omnibus networks has emerged over the course of the 20th century in the ever expanding urban zones. In general, the sustained outward expansion of the city on the basis of new Calpolli being added to the periphery has fueled the expansion of roadways and auto transport, while the expansion of these networks into already built regions of the city presents greater problems. Therefore, it is in areas of the city which have already been built that mass transit schemes are relied upon to facilitate the movement of workers and other citizens around the city. In order to remain effective, these networks are connected to the newer regions of most cities as well, but are most heavily relied upon in the city centers where traffic congestion is severe and the expansion of expressways or motorways is impractical. Overall, the road network across the United Republics has an extent of 377,195 km (234,378 mi) of which 216,822 km (134,726 mi) are paved. Roughly 7% of the total length of roadways in the country consists of multi lane expressways and major arteries for the automotive transportation system which plays a significant role to the overal transit system of the country. Both the roads and railways are nationalized in Zacapican. Most expressways operate on a system of tolls which help to finance their upkeep, while the railways permit the passage of trains owned by private companies on their rail network for a fee for the same purpose. In general, the state ownership model for these means of transportation is regarded as most efficient.

Ximahk bridge along the Tzopilopan-Quitzapatzaro railway

The most extensive network of railways and roadways are the coastal avenues which travel along the relatively flat and densely populated eastern and western coasts. Of the 21 national expressways in Aztapamatlan, 15 are found in the north and west coast regions, with the remainder primarily traversing east to west to connect the two traveling through mountain routes over central and southern Zacapican and the rugged Fishtail peninsula. These expressways are the main means of regional and interregional passenger transportation. The railways are primarily used for freight purposes and serve as the main arteries of non-passenger industrial tranportation, with effectively all Zacapine goods traveling at some point in their production or distribution through the freight cars of the national rail corporation Tepozcoatl. Two high speed rail lines exist in Zacapican disconnected from one another, these being the east and west coast lines which interlink the major metropolitan centers on each coast and are able to remain financially viable due to the high traffic between these destinations. However, due to much lower density of demand in the interior as well as terrain making it difficult to lay rail for high speed trains, high speed rail has not yet been able to establish itself between the coasts of the country in the interior regions which remain the domain of conventional passenger rail and the motorway system.

Sea links have historically been the lifeblood of the Zacapine state and its precursors, due to the difficulty of the interior which made overland travel generally unforgiving. In the modern day, both sea and air links are grouped in the same non-terrestrial transport category in the United Republics, and remain in regular use for travel along the densely populated coasts and between these regions. Air travel in Zacapican is closely regulated by the government but is entirely controlled by private firms making up many dozens of national and regional airlines. There are nearly 1,400 airports in Zacapican and every city above 400,000 inhabitants has a dedicated and modern airport for its service, with domestic air travel making up another large category of passenger travel in Zacapican. However, the eight largest airports in the country corresponding to the five largest cities handle around 90% of all air traffic in the country. By comparison there are 79 seaports in Zacapican, 49 along the west coast and 30 along the eastern coast. Roll on-roll off cargo shipping is commonly used for short range maritime transportation of goods, while major ferry terminals exist in every port city in Zacapican to connect to other ports as well as many smaller terminals along the waterfronts of the same city. Smaller coastal cities and towns are connected by these same maritime passenger and freight transit connections to each other and the major hubs, and in some port cities a portion of commuting workers enter the city from nearby towns or outer wards of the city itself by way of ferry transport rather than rail or road transportation.

Communications

The majority of Zacapine telecommunication infrastructure is owned by the state corporation Cecnitlacayoh Nuhhuian Macho Huehcacaquiztli Atlepetequipanoliztli (CNMHA), a public utility corporation which enjoyed a total monopoly status between 1925 and 1961 when the sector was liberalized and deregulated to allow private competitors for the first time to establish their own telecoms and broadcasting networks. CNMHA in the modern day has retained its near total monopoly on communications infrastructure in the country, however, and operates using a business model of renting its established equipment out to private networks for a fee which covers the equipment maintenance costs. Zacapican has a state owned internet service provider, Nahuanet, which provides free internet access across the counrty and operates a subsidiary of CNMHA. While many private competitors also offer commerical internet services which are generally faster and of a higher quality, the Nahuanet internet service which is publically available to all residents in the country is considered an indispensable public asset despite its annual losses subsidized by the state treasury. CNMHA telephone, telegraph, faximile and television infrastructure services however are not free to use and the fees the corporation is able to charge to media networks and private companies to use its equipment enables it to generate revenue and effectively cover many of its own expenses without state subsidization while keeping the fees and costs down for the average citizen for basic services as the costs are absorbed by neither CNMHA nor the individual user but rather the private firms paying for the privilege of service on the public system. This model has remained in place for decades thanks in large part to the extensive network of public infrastructure owned by CNMHA the construction of which was paid for by the state, making it more affordable for most private firms to pay the fee to use this network rather than finance and establish their own parallel private networks for their own use. Nevertheless, limited broadcasting stations, especially for radio and television, have been established in large cities like Angatahuaca and Quitzapatzaro where the high density of customers can make the investment into private infrastructure financially sound in the long term.

Demographics

Zacapican is considered a medium to large nation relative to the world standard, playing host to a variety of unique ethnic groups and populations. There are 70,103,619 people living in Zacapican according to the 2022 census carried out by the Statistics and Data Collection Agency within the Secretariat of Internal Affairs. 63.6% of the recorded population, roughly 38,659,838 people, is between the ages of 15 and 64 while 24.2% (aproximately 14,710,189 people) are under 14 while only 12.2% or 7,415,880 people were recorded as being over 64 years of age. In general, the population has a mostly balanced sex ration averaging 0.98 males to females across all ages, with a surplus of males under 15 at a ratio of 1.05 males to females in that cohort, compared to a ratio of 0.72 males to females 65 and over. The average life expectancy is 77.14 years at birth. Less than 30% of Zacapitecs identify as Nahua ethnically, while 88.9% speak Nahuatl as a first language compared to 97.9% of the population which are proficient in Nahuatl. 99.6% of those aged over 15 can read and write in at least one language. Over the past 40 years, Zacapican has maintained a relatively stable rate of population growth averaging at a 2.1% increase every 5 years. The nation experienced its most precipitous growth in the past hundred years between 1914 and 1947, a period of Zacapitec history marked by industrialization and urbanization, following which the growth rate stabilized towards its current norm.

Ethnicity and Language

Ethnic Composition of the United Zacapine Republics
Nahua			27.5%
Purépecha			9.9%
Otomi			6.1%
Zacateco			5.9%
Xi'oi			5.7%
Chaan			5.2%
Tzhuana			4.9%
Caxcan			4.8%
Iakan			4.6%
Cochimí			3.4%
Kayan			3.3%
Aymara			3.2%
Biele			3.1%
Ona			2.9%
Mapuche			2.4%
Guaycura			2.2%
Lushyods			2.1%
Onekawan			1.4%
Nuu Savi			1.1%
Other			0.3%
Values represent self identification

Urbanization

Zacapican is a urbanized nation with close to 50% of the nation's population living within the city limits of the country's twenty largest urban centers. However, it is not uniformly urbanized across all regions. Most Zacapitecs live on the Zacaco plains and on the coastal strip of the Mixtepemec. These areas boast the most concentrated and densely packed population centers, as the Mixtepemec coast plays host to almost no rural communities although such towns and villages may still be sound in some quantity across the Zacaco. Conversely, the Mixtepemec highlands as well as the Xallipan, Aztlacapallco and Michnamanalco regions play host to few significant urban centers and host a widely dispersed rural population. According to the 2019 census, 82% of the Zacapitec population live in urban zones, whether inside city limits or within urbanized satellite communities.