Costa Bravo
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Free State of Costa Bravo Estado Libre de Costa Bravo | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
| Motto: "Trabajadores, unite!" | |
Anthem: The Internationale/La Internacional | |
| Capital | Nuevo Puerto Hércules |
| Official languages | None |
Local languages | a la brava |
| Ethnic groups (2019) | 29.0% European 18.6% South Asian 16.0% African 10.9% Asian 9.6% Polynesian 8.9% West Asian 7.0% other |
| Religion (2019) | 33.1% Liberational Catholicism 20.8% Buddhism 13.0% Hinduism 10.4% Islam 10.4% no religion 7.6% Judaism 4.7% other |
| Demonym(s) | Bravo |
| Government | Democratic confederalism (Devolved council democracy government on a confederated model with syndicalist traditions) |
| Stages of sovereignty | |
• Discovery by Europeans | 1522 |
• Colonization by Spain | 1580 |
• Ceded to Great Britain | 1714 |
• Independence | 1812 |
• Abolition of the directory system | 1991 |
| Area | |
• Total | 54,700 km2 (21,100 sq mi) |
• Water (%) | 6.9 |
| Population | |
• 2019 census | 5,001,250 |
• Density | 98/km2 (253.8/sq mi) |
| GDP (PPP) | estimate |
• Total | ƒ800 billion |
• Per capita | ƒ54,821 |
| GDP (nominal) | estimate |
• Total | ƒ700 billion |
• Per capita | ƒ35,934 |
| Gini |  .13low |
| HDI |  0.933very high |
| Currency | Costa Bravo Florín (ƒ) (FLO) |
| Time zone | UTC+3:00 (UTC) |
| Date format | dd-mm-yyyy |
| Driving side | right |
| Calling code | +666 |
| Internet TLD | .cb |
Costa Bravo, officially the Free State of Costa Bravo or Estado Libre de Costa Bravo, is a confederal democracy located on a chain of islands spanning the South Atlantic and Southern Indian Ocean. Costa Bravo was formerly a colonial subject of Spain and Great Britain. It won independence from Britain in 1812. The current form of government dates to 1991 following a period of civil war.
Costa Bravo is governed from the ‘bottom-up’. Every community, ethnicity, culture, religious group, intellectual movement, and economic unit is autonomously organized as a political entity. All issues of daily life are decided on by the members of these organizations in consensus decision-making and direct democracy. Issues are put to the vote in an endless stream of referendums. This political apparatus is highly digital: votes are cast by citizens ‘on the go’ with their personal smart devices and computers. Political participation and voting are mandatory for all citizens. There is no head of state, but a ‘Representative’ may be provisionally appointed to conduct diplomacy on the people’s behalf (for example).
There is no official language. Media and daily conversations are in code-switched English and Spanish. This vernacular is called a la brava, or Bravo Spanglish.
The islands that are now part of Costa Bravo were colonized by Austronesian peoples between 500 to 1200 CE. Austronesian settlement lasted less than a century. Europeans independently discovered the islands on 1 April, 1522, when Juan Sebastián Elcano, the Basque Spanish explorer who completed the first circumnavigation of the world, was forced to shelter on Costa Bravo after being lost in a storm. The islands were claimed by Spain and colonization began in 1580.
Costa Bravo is the most remote nation in the world. In the 20th century, Costa Bravo played an outsize role in the Cold War as one of the leaders of the Third-World movement, a coalition of non-aligned countries in the Global South. By the end of the Cold War, Costa Bravo ranked as one of the most developed countries in the world, but to this day remains in the political sphere of developing countries.
Etymology
The name "Costa Bravo" is a corruption of the original name, which dates from the Spanish discovery of the archipelago during the first circumnavigation of the world. Noting the tumultuous waters and rocky coastline of the region's many islands, crewmember of the Victoria Antonio Pigafetta dubbed the place Costa Brava, Spanish for "furious coast". The name first appeared in Maximilianus Transylvanus's De Moluccis Insulis. The shift from Brava to Bravo occurred shortly after the British takeover in 1714, when the evolved form began began appearing in administration records. The original name continued in vernacular use until the early 19th century.
In 16th century Latin language accounts, the name is given as Ora Pravo, meaning "crooked coast" or "wicked coast".
Inhabitants of Costa Bravo are known as Bravoes.
History
Prehistory
The history of Costa Bravo prior to European discovery of the islands is imprecise on account of scarce archaeological remains. Estimated dates of initial settlement range from 500 to 1200 CE, approximately coinciding with the arrival of the first Austronesian peoples in Madagascar. These settlers came from Melanesia and Micronesia. The population size and specific cultural identities of the settlers are not precisely known. Only fragmentary skeletal and material remains have been uncovered. It is believed that settlement lasted for a few generations before collapse. Disease, political strife, or climate events have been hypothesized as the cause.
The Austronesian settlers are best known as the creators of the Satan Stone or Piedra de Satanás, a 3 meter tall oblate ovoid monolith carved from a silicate mineral meteorite. The stone was unearthed by farmers in the southern part of the main island in 1852. It has been on display at the People's Museum since 1900. The manner of its construction, its provenance, and the meaning of the glyphs covering its surface are all unknown. The glyphs are rendered in boustrophedonic text but resemble no other writing system in the world. None of the text is definitively understood. Some modern linguists argue it is not true writing but proto-writing, or even a more limited mnemonic device for genealogy, choreography, navigation, astronomy, or agriculture. There is continuing debate as to whether the glyphs are essentially logographic or syllabic, though they appear to be compatible with neither a pure logography nor a pure syllabary. The study of these glyphs, and the purpose of the Satan Stone itself, remains contentious to this day. The perception of the monolith as an object of Satanic power led to it almost being destroyed on two separate occasions in the 18th and 19th centuries.
European colonization
The islands were discovered on 1 April, 1522 by Juan Sebastián Elcano and the crew of the Victoria who completed the first circumnavigation of the world. Elcano had assumed command of the expedition after Ferdinand Magellan's death in the Philippines. Elcano was left with a skeleton crew and a single carrack, which was laden with precious spices from the Spice Islands. With only rice for rations, the Victoria sailed across the Indian Ocean, hoping to reach Africa and then Spain. In late March, the Victoria encountered a cyclone in the South Indian Ocean, which sent the ship into uncharted waters far to the south of her intended route. The crew chanced upon the archipelago now known as Costa Bravo, and there sheltered and provisioned for food and water. They remained on the islands from 1 April to 4 April 1522. The Venetian scholar Antonio Pigafetta wrote extensively of the wildlife and landscape of the islands. In his journal, Pigafetta christened the place Costa Brava and noted its approximate location. The Victoria arrived in Spain five months later.