Angatahuaca
Angatahuaca
𐐈𐑌𐑀𐐰𐐻𐐰𐐸𐐶𐐰𐐿𐐰 | |
|---|---|
  .jpg)  Clockwise from top left: Cityscape of Heron Island, typical altepetlianca residential ward, World-Carrier plaza, Atlatlemitl statue in Cuayollotli park | |
| Country | Zacapican |
| Republic | Aztaco |
| Atlepetl | Angatahuaca |
| Established | 744 CE |
| Tlayacame | 5
|
| Government | |
| • Altepepixqui | Lozya Xanamil |
| • First Altepehuaque | Lodmilla Hladizla |
| • Chief Magistrate | Tizaro Sesasi |
| Area | |
| • Total | 401 km2 (155 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 10 m (30 ft) |
| Population (2022 census) | |
| • Total | 8,054,830 |
| • Density | 20,087/km2 (52,030/sq mi) |
Angatahuaca (Nahuatl: 𐐈𐑌𐑀𐐰𐐻𐐰𐐸𐐶𐐰𐐿𐐰) is the largest city in Zacapican and the capital of the Aztaco Republic. The city has a population exceeding 8 million within its urban limits nearly double that of the second largest Zacapine city Tequitinitlan and more than half of the Greater Angatahuaca urban zone home to a total population of 14 million. The urban zone of Greater Angatahuaca is the largest in Zacapican, one of the largest in the world and encompasses nearly the totality of the entire population of the Aztaco republic. Angatahuaca proper encompasses 401 square kilometers across two islands and a large section of the coastal plain of the eastern Aztaco peninsula, creating a high average density of roughly 20,000 residents per square kilometer which rises to heights of 71,000 per square kilometer in the city center on Heron island. Angatahuaca is the industrial, financial, historical and cultural center of the Zacapine mainland as the former capital of its predecessor state Aztapamatlan and the prime destination for the principal waves of immigration to Zacapican from foreign nations over the course of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The city has a GDP equivalent to nearly 500 billion solidus, accounting for a quarter of the national GDP of Zacapican, having the highest GDP per capita of any region of the country.
Located within a major natural harbor, Angatahuaca maintains the largest port facility in Zacapican which extends beyond the bounds of the city and is shared with neighboring Amegatlan. Angatahuaca harbor is the epicenter of the city, the first site colonized by oceangoing Purépecha traders and explorers on the tip of what is now Heron island at the center of the city, (also known as Aztlan). For a thousand years from its foundation onward, Angatahuaca would be the capital of a republic that would grow from a minor city state to a regional power and then a vast empire encompassing all of modern day Zacapican and extending across the oceans in imperial ventures on other continents. As the capital of Aztapamatlan, Angatahuaca would be one of the first cities in the world to surpass a population of 1 million residents and became a multi-cultural metropolis where people, cultures and religions from all over the empire could be found. Angatahuaca retained tremendous economic, cultural and therefore political significiance after the fall of Aztapamatlan and the relocation of the nation's political center to the west coast. The city's port was the entry point for millions of immigrants from Norumbia, Malaio, Ochran and Belisaria, a large portion of which would remain and settle in the city itself while others would disperse to other Zacapine cities from their first port of call in Angatahuaca. Multiculturalism, diversity and the burgeoning economy and population of the city have earned Angatahuaca the name Altepetl Macuilcan Chicuanahuame or "city of five parts and six continents".
Etymology
A colony of great white herons on the island that is today known as Aztlan or Heron island gave Angatahuaca its name, originally Angajtakuaka meaning the "Land of Herons" in the Purépecha language. The founding population of the colony were entirely Purépecha, but would become more and more Nahua as the city drew in the local people from the surrounding hills and marshes. Due to the relative isolation of the colony away from the Purépecha heartland on the west coast, the city changed from primarily Purépecha to primarily Nahua in character and would lead to the Nahuanization of the city's institutions, lineages and its name. Angatahuaca was only one of the Nahuatl transformations of the Purépecha name, with the other common form being Anhuatahuaca due to the "g" phoneme being alien to the Nahuatl language. However, it would be Angatahuaca that would eventually win the battle of Nahuanization and become the widely accepted spelling and pronunciation of the city's name by the 11th century.
History
Foundation
The history of Angatahuaca is the history of Aztapamatlan and the unification of Zacapican. Legends of the founding of the city tell of a the Purépecha sailors following a flock of twenty heron which guided them through the fog and the shoals of the mouth of the harbor to find Heron island and land upon its tip. Tradition places the foundation of the city of Angatahuaca on the tip of Heron island in 744 CE, although some evidence suggests a small outpost of wooden buildings located on the site as early as 700. This Iruka Angajtakua served as a trading post for the Purépecha merchants to purchase trade goods such as copper, silver, furs and dyes from the Nahua, Iakan and Ona tribes inhabiting the marshy coastal plain and the forested hills and valleys of the interior. The lifeblood of this early settlement was the trade around the Anamictlan peninsula back and forth with the main Purépecha city-states of the west coast, although this connection would prove tenuous and easily disrupted by the characteristic winter storms emerging from the polar currents which strike southern of Zacapican from the west. Where its western counterparts engaged in a policy of permitting selective immigration by the locals into their colonial centers and the assimilation of these demographics into the Purépecha culture and way of life, the small and isolated outpost on the tip of Heron island failed to assimilate the local people and instead began to itself assimilate into the predominant Nahua culture and language of the surrounding region. Far from resisting this process, the Purépecha elites of the city embraced this process as a means to bring the city to greater standing among the local powers and as a necessary move to preserve their power in the face of Nahua migration into the city. In 801, the oligarchy of the traders in the city overthrew the weakened Caconzi lord of the city to seize power for themselves as the Nahuanization process placed pressure on the city's political system, establishing the republic of the Wakusicha or "Eagles" later known as the Cuauhtli as Purépecha faded into the status of a minor language in the city. The republican government of Angatahuaca, known as the Cuauhtlatollo, primarily provided a stable political system free of coups and dynastic disputes which plagued the surrounding monarchic city-states and petty kingdoms. Angatahuacan democracy would provide a medium for the relatively peaceful resolution of power struggles within the city elite, establish a release valve for societal pressures and grievances of the people, and most of all protect the power of the Eagles and their ancient lineages which retained control of the political system.
Aztapamatlan
Under the rule of the Cuauhtlatollo, the city-state of Angatahuaca underwent a shift in culture from a minor merchant city to a major martial republic. Militarization began at the top, with the new republican system of government outright requiring certain lengths of military service from the elite before they would be eligible to hold specific offices. The social structure of the city transformed with most of the old merchant families now becoming officers in a new army with the Nahua commoners of the city becoming the rank and file soldiers. The militant republic of Angatahuaca began a campaign of subjugation, integration and assimilation of the same tribes which had once traded with the Purépecha merchants, with flexible units of infantrymen moving into the hills and conquering or displacing the resident tribesmen under the distinctive white banners of the city of Angatahuaca, made of the white feathers of the herons which had given the city its name a century prior. In 955, more than two centuries since the foundation of the city, the Angatahuaca republic ruled over most of the peninsula today known as Aztaco. This expanding new state would become known as Aztapamatlan, a generally translated as "there under the heron's wings", a metaphor for the heron-feather banners which were now flown over fortresses and towns across the peninsula. Angatahuca persued a policy of assimilation not unlike the old Purépecha doctrine of absorbing the surrounding people, this time integrating the conquered people into a Nahua culture and language. The city would also become the new epicenter of the Cozauist religion, then a minor monotheistic sect native to the peninsula and quickly diminishing before being adopted by the Angatahuacan elites as the start of the city's militarization. Angatahuaca became the seat of the Cozauist clergy and temple institution, a status which it retains to the present day. Cozauism became a vehicle for assimilation and integration of the conquered peoples, as the temples would oversee the conversion of the people to the robust and distinct Cozauist sect while spreading Nahuatl language and the narrative of Aztapamatlan imperial destiny in the process. For the next centuries of the city's history, it would continue to grow and prosper greatly through the extracted taxation and tribute from its growing empire. Infrastructure projects and public works, some of which remain in place in the present day a millennium later, were funded with this wealth to accommodate the ballooning population which reached 1 million by the 12th century, occupying the whole of Heron island.
Colonial Metropole
Xolotecate Reformation
Urban Structure
The city of Angatahuaca is divided into five Tlayacame, or city sectors, with varying cultures, architecture and structures stemming from the 13 centuries of evolving urban planning which shaped the city as it expanded. The oldest Tlayacatl, Heron island, has been fully urbanized for a thousand years which many newer structures and public works overlapping their ancient precursors, while the youngest Tlayacatl of Pozon bears a much more uniform and modern appearance comparable to the 20th century urban developments of other Zacapine cities. Angatahuaca is relatively unique among the modern Zacapine cities thanks in large part to how large the pre-modern urban core had become relative to those of other cities. Due to this pre-existing organic city on Heron island, the modern Angatahuaca has expanded in a pattern largely cooperating with the older patterns of settlement rather than overriding the old city as is the case in other urban centers. The five Tlayacame are subdivided into hundreds of calpolli wards, some of which are some of the oldest calpolli still existing.
The old city on Heron island is connected by bridge to the mainland Tlayacame of Cihuacoatl and Achauhtla, the second and third oldest sectors of the city respectively, as well as the island district of Mixtiani which is the smallest and most modern subdivision of the city. The old city on the tip of Heron island features the pattern of winding streets of an organic and unplanned city, which gradually turns into a grid of rectangular city blocks representing the transition of Angatahuaca from a minor trading town to the capital of a growing military power. The grid is the defining feature of the modern city of Angatahuaca, with its straight lines and regular format all but eliminating boundary disputes between property holders and easing construction and investment over the terrain as the city expanded. Many of the older sections of the grid, particularly on Heron island itself have become one-way streets and even pedestrianized areas due to the narrow width of the streets and winding passages between buildings characteristic of the old city which made the infiltration of motor vehicles to this region of the city very difficult. Conversely, the later grid and in particular the grid of the mainland Tlayacame of Cihuacoatl, Achauhtla and Pozon have streets wide enough for 2-4 lanes of traffic and two way streets, many of which have been altered to accommodate tram lines and designated omnibus lanes in the later eras of the city's development. Reconstruction in Cihuacoatl and on Heron island have been constant processes, even before the modernization initiatives of the 20th century as the old city of Angatahuaca suffered many fires, riots and periods of remodeling for centuries. This has created an architectural and design profile placing structures and city features of various ages in close proximity, from the elevated tracks of rapid rail transit lines of the 20th century, the grand villas and of the Aztapamatlan golden age and even some surviving structures of medieval Angatahuaca integrated into the modern cityscape.
The Xolotecate renovations led to the widening of many streets, new avenues and boulevards cutting through the city and the general demolition and reconstruction of a large number of structures in the old city. Angatahuaca had been the only Zacapine city to be electrified before the Revolution, yet this electrification would expand dramatically under Xolotecatl Acuixoc, accompanied with the construction of the city's sewer, the precursors to its modern public transit system, and a number of other municipal utilities necessary to sustain a modern city. The late Xolotecate would see Angatahuaca no longer modernizing but entering the league of the world's great cities with the construction of its iconic skyscrapers achored to Heron island's schist bedrock, a strong and stable geological foundation that would allow the great spires and towers of the city to emerge. Even in the modern day, the skyline of the city rises noticably where the underlying schist is found near the surface, enabling the taller structures to be soundly anchored into the rock. Much of the Heron island region, as well as the nearby sections of Cihuacoatl and Achauhtla tlayacame are home to a large number of iconic skyscrapers contributing to the astronomical density of the central Angatahuaca urban region. Several of the Heron island towers are so tall and have such internal capacity that they are shared among several calpolli and thousands of employees, so many that the housing capacity of the surrounding cityscape cannot keep up with the demand. This has led to many of the workers of central offices and production firms living in wards unusually distant to their workplaces in the context of the Zacapine calpolli system, forming a large population of commuters living in the outer tlayacame and even in the satellite cities outside Angatahuaca and traveling every day to work in the economic centers of Heron island.
In contrast to the dense popuylation and verticality of Heron island, the much less stable marshy soil of the rest of the city, particularly outer Cihuacoatl, Achauhtla and all of Pozon makes the construction of true skyscrapers difficult and favors buildings of 3 to 5 stories on average and no more than 10 stories tall. The Altepetlianca typical of the industrialization era of Zacapine urban history are found in these outer regions alongside the city's industrial centers and factories. Pozon, sometimes called "Little Tequi" because of its resemblance to the western planned city, is well known for its very typical altepetlianca wards, while in other neighborhoods of the city the characteristic altepetlianca structure of standardized apartment blocks with common spaces between them are interspersed with 2 or 3 story residential and mixed use buildings for a more organic pseudo-altepetlianca ward structure.
Demographics
As the first port of call for most immigration entering Zacapican, Angatahuaca's religious, ethnic and cultural diversity increased proportionally to the demographic expansion of the 20th century. From a population hovering around 1.5 million in 1900, Angatahuaca today is home to 8 million people. This rate of growth has been limited by the geography of the Aztaco region in which it is located, which restricts the urban expansion of the city and causes the outpouring of population into the satellite communities. The rate of population growth in the greater urban zone far outstrips that of the city itself, with only the growth rate of the Zacaco valley cities on the west coast competing with Greater Angatahuaca. However, unlike the Zacaco cities much of the Angatahuacan population growth has been fueled by foreign immigration rather than the traditional dynamic of internal migration from rural to urban zones. Today, 90% of the Angatahuacan population claim descent from a foreign ethnicity, only half of which claim descent from a native Zacapine people. Angatahuaca has become known as the tlaatililoni, the "crucible of peoples", in which cultures from all over the world cohabitate and blend together to form the cosmopolitan identity of Angatahuaca and the modern face of Zacapican.
The largest immigrant communities in Angatahuaca today are those originating eastern Belisaria, particularly Drevstran and Ludvosiya. These groups include early arrivals such as the Biele and Lushyods, as well as later additions such as the Ludvosiyan Roma. Large enclaves of immigrant culture exist, particularly in the mainland tlayacame of the city which consisted of the expanding frontier at the time of their arrival. Smaller but much older immigrant populations exist, such as the Tzhuana of Pulacan which first arrived centuries ago while Angatahuaca was still the colonial metropole of Aztapamatlan. The diverse cultures have likewise imported a number of religions, ranging from Alban and Docetic Nazarism to Mutulese and Kayan Sakbe. Various sects of Cozauism now call Angatahuaca home, a place serving as the seat of the orthodox Cozauist strand which long excluded these same sects as heresy. This includes the monolatrist Tlaloc Sect from Pulacan, as well as the Yadokan Cozauist temple.
Transportation
The infrastructure dedicated to transportation in Angatahuaca is a mixture of various modes interlinked to form a single unified municipal transit system managed by the Cenyacana Zazaca Angatahuaca. While the city still incorporates medieval structures such as the Heroes causeway into the modern system, most roadways and transit infrastructure originate in the 20th century. Nevertheless, the efforts of city authorities centuries in the past in building infrastructure to support the island metropolis of one million citizens paved the way, in some cases literally, for the infrastructural projects of the modern age and the expansion of the city's population and geographic extent. Angatahuaca's expansive transportation system ranges from the mundane city streets to aerial tramways, autobus and urban light rail systems, a passenger ferry service, and one of the largest rapid transit networks in the world. Both the scale and diversity of the city's modes of transport stem from the highly complex and multi-layered physical and social structures of the city as well as the city's age and heterogeneity in its history of urban planning which have constantly complicated the installation and maintenance of new municipal infrastructure.
The best known and most widely used Angatahuacan transit system is the city's rapid rail transit system, known simply as the metro. It consists of 489 individual stations, which can be reduced to a count of 411 when those stations connected by pedestrian tunnels for transfers between lines are considered as single stations. These many individual stations are connected by 27 distinct lines which are both numbered and lettered, all of which offer 24 hour continuous service with no overnight stoppages. The first metro transit line was established as an above ground rail line traveling the length of Heron island in 1907, making the Angatahuaca metro system one of the worlds first rapid rail transit systems. Although that line has since been demolished and relocated underground, the Angatahuaca metro system remains the oldest in Zacapican. The system also nearly doubles the size of of the runner up Tequitinitlan mass transit system. It sees a daily ridership of almost 7 million passengers, a number inflated by the number of commuters who live outside the bounds of Angatahuaca and use regional rail to connect to the metro system as their primary means of daily travel to and from their workplaces. The metro system is directly linked to the city's two aerial tramway lines, one with three stations located in the Pozon heights and the other with six stations traversing the striking cliffsides of riverside Mixtiani.
The bodies of water separating the modern day Tlayacame of the city play a significant role in the face of Angatahuaca's modern transportation system. The Tliltic river which seperates Heron island from the mainland, as well as the gap of the Angatahuaca bay which separates it from Mixtiani island was far too wide for the pre-modern city authorities to consider building a permanent bridge, which had the effect of confining Angatahuaca to Heron island for centuries and creating a ferry service connecting it to what were then the satellite towns in coastal Cihuacoatl and Achuahtla. Such a ferry service continues to this day as a means of bypassing congested bridges and expressways or the often crowded mass transit systems of the bus and metro, using the waterways of the city to bypass much of its urban structure and provide another means of relatively rapid public transportation. It was not until the 1910s that the very first bridges crossing the Tliltic river would connect Heron island to those mainland towns which would be subsumed into the growing metropolis in short order. Cable stayed and suspension brides, built by immigrant manpower and using steel cables from the Tequitinitlan steelworks on the other side of the country, became the symbol of the new city in that era representing both the technological progress and infrastructural accomplishments as well as the harnessing of the newly interconnected national and international reach of the Zacapine economy. The bridges today remain key links between the city's two island and three mainland tlayacame, providing rail, bus and road transportation across what was once only permeable to the ferry system. Bridges have since been joined by mechanically ventilated underground tunnels running under the rivers and beneath the bay itself, consisting of separate railway tunnels and subterranean roadways for car and bus transit.
The expansion of major roadways has proven especially difficult in Angatahuaca where the densely built and populated Heron island has resisted almost all projects to install vehicular expressways through the city. To this day, the Island Circuit expressway is the only roadway of its kind on Heron island, connecting to a small handful of such routes through the mainland Tlayacame and the outlying communities beyond the city limits. Vehicle ownership is relatively common in Angatahuaca compared to other Zacapine cities thanks to the old grid design which facilitated a conversion to streets and avenues suitable for automobiles. However, the number of Angatahuacans who travel by car is still well short of the global average with most citizens traveling by public transit. Indeed the private automobile suffers from the infamous daily traffic jams for which the Angatahuacan expressways are well known, which has pushed many would-be drivers to use other transportation purely for convenience as these are often simply faster means of reaching their destinations. In particular, streetcars and autobuses which are able to run on regular city streets and avenues offer a far more efficient to transport passengers by road and have significantly decreased congestion along the routes in which they have been implemented when compared to the primarily automotive routes through the city.
Education
The Angatahuacan education system is the largest in Zacapican, commensurate with the population of the city. The city's education department is tasked with the monumental undertaking of educating 1.2 million primary and and secondary school students for which it maintains a network of more than 1,800 public schools across the city. The average primary schools which tend to be more local and integrated into the calpolli wards serve between 100 and 300 students per school on average, while the more centralized secondary schools severe many hundreds and even thousands of students each. The massive size of the Angatahuaca education system has led to the political and social push for standardization of education across the city, due to the potential for great gulfs in the quality and content of education existing between those schools in the wealthiest Heron island wards and the comparatively poor wards in outer Pozon or on Mixtiani island. All public schools are required to teach the standard core curriculum set by the municipal education department, which covers language, history and science education, while the curricula for sports, music and the arts is not standardized. This system is intended to guarantee equal education to all city residents when it comes to those critical areas which most contribute to later academic success in secondary school and university level education, whilst leaving the local communities and schools relatively free to teach the so-called "non essential" subjects however best suits the culture and sensibilities of the local residents.
In accordance with the national standard, Angatahuaca has a single centralized university system which has subsumed the many separate institutions and academies which once existed in pre-modern Angatahuaca. The Angatahuaca University system, much like its pre-university counterpart, is the largest in Zacapican with more than 1 million students and researchers engaged in the university system. The city's university system is considered highly prestigeous within Zacapican, drawing in students from other parts of the country. However, many of the non-local students entering Angatahuaca University are foreign students traveling to Zacapican on a student visa specifically to study at the university's well decorated academic institutes, which stands in contrast to the other universities in the national system. In another departure from the national norm, Angatahuaca University offers extensive education in the humanities and liberal arts in contrast to the typical Zacapine municipal universities which focus on technical and vocational education and the hard sciences. Nevertheless, the Angatahuaca University exact sciences faculty remains prestigious in particular for its world-leading role in nuclear science and fusion research.
Economy
Angatahuaca is the center of the Zacapine economic system, serving as its financial capital and a major global city significantly involved in the world economy. Every sector, both major and minor, of the Zacapine economy is represented in Angatahuaca, from customer service and entertainment to banking to the quintessential Zacapine industry of steel production. The city continues to benefit from its ancestral advantages, its strategic position on the east coast of Zacapican and its large and well protected natural harbor which has become the basis for a major deep water port. The shared harbor of Amegatlan-Angatahuaca allows for large volumes of traffic as well as commercial shipbuilding and ship breaking. The port is the greater of the two maritime hubs of the Zacapine marine commerce and transportation sector, the other being Tecolotlan in the Zacaco Republic. Angatahuaca serves as one of the main connections between Oxidentale and the strategic Ozeros region by way of Malaio, constituting an important link in the global supply chain. Many international firms as well as the headquarters of various national firms can be found in Angatahuaca, driving the proliferation of banking, accountancy, legal services, media and advertising firms to support the commercial activities concentrated in the city and on Heron island in particular. The financial firms in Angatahuaca include not only Zacapine firms but major international firms such as the VEx and the West Maritime Bank.
The city is the only one in Zacapican to have undergone significant deindustrialization in response to the growing service sectors in the city pushing out much of the heavy industry which is now relegated to certain parts of Pozon and Mixtiani tlayacame. Much of the prime productive activities of the secondary sector have been relocated to the satellite cities such as Amegatlan, fueling the growth of these communities while making room in the Angatahuaca city center for Zacapican's emerging tertiary sector to establish itself. This can be seen clearly on Heron island where entire wards which only decades ago were dedicated to textiles and the garment industry have become centers of the service industries with factory floors being converted into office spaces to accommodate the changing demand for work space. The bustling city life and vibrant culture have also driven the growth of the media industry including filmmaking and animation in Angatahuaca as well as the rising business of tourism, which manages to draw millions of sightseers, vacationers and other visitors from all over the world as well as the rest of Zacapican every year.
Concentration of economic activity in Angatahuaca, dating back to the Xolotecate and the legacy of Aztapamatlan, has pushed the city to far outpace the rest of Zacapican economically. Contributing nearly a quarter of the national gross domestic product of United Zacapine Republics, Angatahuaca enjoys a GDP per capita rate of roughly $62,000. The ratio of economic activity per resident in the city of Angatahuaca compares favorably even to the wealthiest and most economically advanced nations in the world, more than doubling the national average for Zacapican. Zacapine economists refer to the phenomenon of economic concentration and pronounced growth and prosperity in Angatahuaca as the "rule of critical mass", where the close proximity of varied economic activities coupled with the high density of population have created an endless economic chain reaction of greater growth, innovation and economic diversification in the same way the nuclear fuel in a reactor eventually meets the conditions to begin a fission chain reaction. Some experts have suggested that the liberal cultural attitudes of the cosmopolitan urban center facilitate the acceptance of new ideas and concepts, providing a tangible advantage in flexibility and growth in the city's economy as a global center of commerce and economic activity.
Health
Culture
Cuisine
Climate
The city of Angatahuaca on the eastern coast of the Aztaco republic lies at the confluence of the warm Rezese current from the north and the cold Cecatoya current emerging from the southern circumpolar current. These conditions create the fertile waters of the Matlayahualoyan off the coast of Angatahuaca, as well as the frequent morning fog and humid subtropical climate of the region. The geography of the city and mountainous barriers of the Aztaco hinterland and the Mixtepemec mountains to the west shield Angatahuaca from cold air currents in winter, making the cold and damp Angatahuaca winters milder than those of the major western cities. The extremes of cold and hot climate are generally regulated by the onshore breeze from Angatahuaca bay and the Amictlan ocean which moderates climate conditions, although they also increase the rate of precipitation in the region relative to the more continental climates further west and north. The highly urbanized environment also gives rise to a heat island effect, making the nighttime and wintertime temperatures in the city generally warmer than those of the outlying areas across the Aztaco republic.