Transportation in Zacapican

Transportation in Zacapican is made up of a complex web of rail lines, highways, air lines and littoral transit routes navigating the country's urban landscapes, its waterways and the terrain of the interior. Zacapican is a highly mountainous country with approximately 70% of the country's land area covered by mountain ranges including some of the tallest peaks in the world, as well as hills, canyons and other significant geological formations posing a unique challenge to the prospect of overland travel. In part because of this geographical reality, Zacapican has developed throughout its history a highly maritime pattern of development due to the relative ease in traveling by ship compared to overland travel through the mountains. As a result, 17 of the 26 most significant cities in Zacapican today are port cities with major maritime connections to one another and to the wider world, while only 9 are found further inland. There are only two major regions of Zacapican with a significant expanse of flat terrain. The first of these is the Zacaco valley in the Republic of the same name, a highly fertile valley with significant rainfall and a major system of rivers that has made the basin the most populated zone of the entire country. The second is the far larger but far more arid Meco valley, which makes up parts of the Xochicuahuico, Ayomazaco and Xallipan Republics. Due to its aridity, the Meco basin supports a far lesser density of population than its western cousin the Zacaco, with its urban centers being widely dispersed across the flatlands of the valley floor. These two regions account for all nine of the major cities of the interior, with the more mountainous regions of the country being generally less developed and sparsely populated. All of these factors combined have contributed to the form and function of the nation's transportation network.

Administratively, transportation systems in Zacapican are governed by two different Secretariats of the central government. The first is the Secretariat of Public Works, which is responsible for mobilizing manpower and engineering teams to construct new infrastructure projects and undertake any major maintenance or repair operations that may likewise require such a mobilization of resources. Asa result, the expansion of transit networks is largely reliant on such agencies of the Public Works Secretariat as the Roads, Bridges and Dams Administration, largely responsible for building critical parts of the nation's road and rail networks. However, it falls to the Secretariat of Transportation to control and maintain the transport infrastructure once it is in place through its system of subordinate agencies dedicated to the railway and highway networks, maritime travel and safety, and civilian aviation. Due to the unusual demands of labor in service to long distance transportation systems, many of the transport services of Zacapican are staffed directly by state employees outside of the normal functions of the calpolli system of labor, while the local transportation services within a city or urban zone are generally staffed by transport worker calpolli contracted by the local governments.