Agnannet
Agnannet ⴰⴳⵏⴰⵏⵏⴻⵜ | |
|---|---|
Clockwise from top left: Palace district at night, 19th century residential towers, Old Agnannet traditional architecture, Mamala Tower. | |
.svg) Flag | |
| Country |  Charnea |
| Region | Achra |
| Wards | 4 quarters
|
| Settled | 4th century BCE |
| Area | |
| • Urban | 250 km2 (100 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 200 m (656 ft) |
| Population (2020) | |
| • Urban | 7,825,622 |
| • Density | 31,302/km2 (81,070/sq mi) |
| Demonym | Agnannetian |
| Postcode districts | CA, CE, CT |
| Area code | 145 |
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Agnannet (Tamashek: ⴰⴳⵏⴰⵏⵏⴻⵜ, or archaic ⴳⵏⵏⵏⵜ) is the capital of Charnea, located in the central region of Achra. It is the largest city in Charnea and one of the largest in Scipia, serving as a global city and a hub of the Scipian economy in its capacity as one of the premiere urban centers on the continent. Agnannet has a population recorded at 7,825,622 inhabitants living within the city's land area of 250 square kilometers, making it the most densely populated Charnean city with an average density of over 31,000 residents per square kilometer. The city is divided into four large administrative quarters - Afalla, Tajiwen, Ajuss, and Ateram - which are further subdivided into a total of 75 districts. Agnannet has been inhabited more than 2 millenia, being one of the four great ancient cities of the Ninva Desert alongside Azut, Ekelhoc and Hamath. Until the mid 19th century, historical Agnannet was largely confined to what is today considered the Old City and the Palace district in Afalla. The industrialization of Charnea and resulting mass urbanization of the population in the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to the demographic explosion of Agnannet and a radical change in its urban layout and character as a city, giving rise to its modern organization and municipal institutions. Today, the city is home to more than quarter of the Charnean population and contributes nearly half of the national GDP as the premiere financial, economic, cultural and political center of the country.
The city gains its name from the Agnan of the Tree who is remembered as one of the greatest Amenokals of the ancient Tamazɣa. Agnannet, literally "the resting place of Agnan", was established as a settlement surrounding the funeral monument of the great king of the Amaziɣ, which stands today as the Great Pyramid of Agnannet. This monolithic landmark dominating the landscape quickly became an important waypoint and rest stop for the nomads and trans-Ninvite caravans traversing the area, eventually establishing a permanent town with a system of foggaras to draw water from the Achra Sandstone aquifer. Agnannet remained a relatively minor town best known for its famous landmark until the time of Ihemod the Inheritor, a Tenerian conqueror who took Agnannet for his capital in 1357 after conquering the Deshritic peoples of the eastern Ninva establishing the Ninvite Empire, the precursor to modern day Charnea. The city grew in size during this era, enriched by the plunder of Ihemod's conquest of the majority of the Scipian continent, growing with a population of Tenerian warriors, administrators, and Ikelan made to settle in Achra to grow the Imperial core. Agnannet's role as Charnea's capital would again serve its growth as a city in the 19th century, with the radical reformation of the Ihemodian rump state of Awakar into the modernized Charnean Empire of the 20th century which would see Agnannet in particular transformed from a sparsely populated desert town into the industrial metropolis of the Ninva.
History
Geography
Climate
Agnannet has a desert climate ( Koppën Classification BWh ) typical of the Ninva Desert characterized by long, extremely hot summers and short, pleasant winters. The heat becomes extremely elevated in the dry season with temperatures regularly exceeding 40°C (104°F) and at times reaching as high as 49-50°C (between 120.2 and 122°F) between the months of April and October, which make up the dry season in central and northern Charnea. The average temperature does not drop below 20°C (68°F) at any point during the year, and there has never been any recorded temperature below freezing. However, ground frost can occur during winter nights in the countryside outside the city to the north and east. Rainfall is concentrated between the months of December and March, with the Agnannet receiving very little precipitation overall. The region receives almost no rain whatsoever during the dry season. Dust storms are a relatively common occurrence, and particularly severe dust storms have been known to come over the city once every few years to once every decade and reduce visibility to as low as 10 meters, causing the cancellation of flights out of the city's airports and the shutting down of most schools for the duration of the dust storm.
| Climate data for Agnannet (1965-2011) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 32.5 (90.5) |
33.8 (92.8) |
37.0 (98.6) |
41.2 (106.2) |
44.1 (111.4) |
46.2 (115.2) |
47.1 (116.8) |
49.8 (121.6) |
43.0 (109.4) |
41.5 (106.7) |
38.0 (100.4) |
31.9 (89.4) |
49.8 (121.6) |
| Average high °C (°F) | 21.3 (70.3) |
24.4 (75.9) |
28.7 (83.7) |
34.4 (93.9) |
38.4 (101.1) |
40.3 (104.5) |
42.5 (108.5) |
41.6 (106.9) |
40.3 (104.5) |
35.3 (95.5) |
27.8 (82.0) |
22.3 (72.1) |
33.1 (91.6) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | 15.4 (59.7) |
17.3 (63.1) |
25.4 (77.7) |
26.9 (80.4) |
33.9 (93.0) |
34.7 (94.5) |
34.2 (93.6) |
34.7 (94.5) |
33.5 (92.3) |
28.4 (83.1) |
21.2 (70.2) |
16.3 (61.3) |
26.8 (80.3) |
| Average low °C (°F) | 9.0 (48.2) |
11.2 (52.2) |
15.2 (59.4) |
20.4 (68.7) |
26.9 (80.4) |
27.0 (80.6) |
29.3 (84.7) |
29.2 (84.6) |
25.4 (77.7) |
21.1 (70.0) |
15.5 (59.9) |
10.3 (50.5) |
20.0 (68.1) |
| Record low °C (°F) | 1.3 (34.3) |
1.5 (34.7) |
4.5 (40.1) |
11.0 (51.8) |
13.0 (55.4) |
20.1 (68.2) |
22.6 (72.7) |
22.7 (72.9) |
15.1 (59.2) |
14.0 (57.2) |
7.0 (44.6) |
1.6 (34.9) |
1.3 (34.3) |
| Average rainfall mm (inches) | 20.5 (0.81) |
18.0 (0.71) |
17.9 (0.70) |
11.0 (0.43) |
8.9 (0.35) |
4.0 (0.16) |
4.7 (0.19) |
2.0 (0.08) |
0.1 (0.00) |
0.8 (0.03) |
9.7 (0.38) |
16.6 (0.65) |
114.2 (4.49) |
| Average rainy days | 9.1 | 7.3 | 9.4 | 5.3 | 3.3 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 3.3 | 10.3 | 48.8 |
| Average relative humidity (%) | 47 | 36 | 23 | 21 | 17 | 11 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 20 | 36 | 47 | 26 |
| Mean monthly sunshine hours | 212.4 | 226.6 | 219.8 | 242.3 | 287.7 | 328.2 | 332.1 | 309.2 | 271.6 | 311.4 | 269.2 | 214.3 | 3,224.8 |
| Percent possible sunshine | 63 | 71 | 59 | 63 | 70 | 80 | 80 | 77 | 74 | 87 | 82 | 65 | 72 |
| Source: Meteorological Association of Charnea | |||||||||||||
Districts
Agnannet is divided into four quadrants, known as the four quarters of Agnannet, corresponding to the cardinal directions. These are Afalla the northern quadrant, Tajiwen the eastern quadrant, the southern quadrant of Ajuss, and Ateram the western quadrant of the city. The four quadrants meet at the center of the city, where the Palace district and the Old City are found. The city is bisected east to west by the Timɣar Amejj, the central axis of transit across the city. Ateram is the main industrial center of Agnannet, home to COPEC and Plexico refineries and chemical plants, factories producing metal products and components as well as the corresponding workers villages. The large industrial plants of Ateram are mainly located near the Timɣar Amejj and the Great Tenere railway station to more easily access long distance freight infrastructure, while the residents of the quarter primarily live to the north and south of the central artery traveling to the factories for work by car, bus and Light Rail connections. This is mirrored in part in the Tajiwen sector to the east, where the main rolling stock factories of the Akundar Transportation company alongside automotive and aircraft manufacturers such as the Charnean branch of the Ahuriri Corporation. Afalla is the most affluent quadrant of Agnannet, hosting the main casinos and tourist zones of the city including the Great Sooq towards the south nearest the Old City, while the city's financial district can be found in the center of Afalla. By contrast, Ajuss is the least affluent part of Agnannet, where rates of poverty exceed the city average and where the Agnannet slums can be found. The four quadrants of Agnannet are subdivided into a further 75 districts and wards.
Demographics
For much of its recorded history, Agnannet has a population ranging from 20,000 to as high as 81,000 at its peak. Through much of the pre-modern period, the population would frequently fluctuate up and down due to the mass relocations of Ikelan around the empire as well as the urbanization and de-urbanization of various Tenerian clans as their fortunes waxed and waned. The city did not surpass 100,000 inhabitants until 1890 with the influx of railroad workers from the Great Scipian railway, starting an upward trend that would see the population double through the 1890s and again by 1910. By 1924, the population of Agnannet had risen to some 600,000 inhabitants, of primarily nomadic Tenerian background abandoning pastoralism in favor of the urban lifestyle because of the promise of prosperity and education that could be attained in the ever industrializing capital city. The demographic expansion of Agnannet and to an extent the smaller Charnean cities of that era such as Azut and Hamath led to a resource crunch in the 1930s, in particular a shortage of water and rising food prices in Achra which negatively affected the people of Agnannet and its prospering new industry. Political moves to secure these resources for Achra and the city of Agnannet were in large part responsible for the outbreak of the Agala War, which in turn triggered a greater influx of residents to Agnannet as internally displaced Zarma immigrated to the city to find work and a livelihood, primarily settling in the Ajuss districts in the south. Agnannet reached the milestone of 1,000,000 inhabitants in 1955 and 5,000,000 on the eve of the Ninvite War in 1984. Today the city is inhabited by over 7 million people, around 65% of which are Tenerian, 15% are Zarma, 10% are Ashkans and the remainder are a variety of minority groups, primarily Mutulese metis.
Economy
The city of Agnannet is the central hub of the Charnean political system, the country's single largest population center and the base of operations for most of its major firms. Consequently, the city has become the heart of the Charnean economy. Since its foundation, Agnannet has prospered from the trans-Ninvite trade as one of the main interconnections between southern and northern Scipia. This remains the case in the modern day, as Agnannet has transformed into the central hub of all land and air traffic across Charnea and by extension central Scipia. This status as the heart of Charnean logistics remains the basis of the economy of Agnannet, sustaining its key manufacturing and service sectors. Agnannet has been the premiere center of production in the country long before the industrialization of Charnea, producing metal weapons and tools, clothing, furniture, and serving as a central point of processing and distribution for the valuable trade commodities of the area such as salt, gold and Kermes dye. This role as a processing and refining center for commodities from across the desert expanded following the late 19th century mining boom in Charnea enabled by the advent of the desert railroads which expanded access to mineral rich but isolated and inhospitable regions of Charnea. The first centers for the production of steel, refined copper and aluminum, as well as the first petroleum refineries were established in Agnannet with their supplies of raw material coming in through the railways and oil pipelines carrying precious substances from the resource fields of the Ninva desert.
Over the first half of the 20th century, Agnannet became the forward edge of the modernization of the Charnean economy with the establishment and expansion of the advanced manufacturing industries. This began in the oil industry, with the refineries built across the city over the 1920s and 30s as well as the oil fields which supplied them becoming nationalized in 1945 under COPEC, producing a wide variety of refined petrochemicals. This would later lead to the creation of the Charnean plastics industry dominated by Plexico in the mid 1960s, with both the main COPEC facilities and the key Plexico plastics factories established in Agnannet. The manufacturing industry in Agnannet would also diversify into the business of producing metal components using the mineral resources already being processed for export in Agnannet and the surrounding towns across Achra. The industrialization of the city would continue in this pattern, exploiting the resources already to the local market due to the Agnannet's status as a transport and logistics hub to establish more complex economic activities, with further economic expansion benefitting from the banks, roads, schools and administrative infrastructure already put in place to sustain previous developments. The pattern of development of Agnannet would subsequently be copied by the smaller Charnean cities such as Azut, Ekelhoc and Tanitnet following suit in the footsteps of the capital.
Agnannet's internal economy still retains many of the old fixtures of the city's industries, producing textiles and clothing, furniture and other domestic products using traditional methods primarily for sale to other residents of the city rather than for the export market. Novelties, pieces of art and souvenirs are also significant craft industries in Agnannet, primarily serving the growing market of tourists visiting the city, breathing new life in the dozens of Sooqs found in all the regions of the city and most of all the Great Sooq in the Old City, which had previously declined due to the flight of the lower and middle class population from central Agnannet to the surrounding wards. While tourism began primarily in the form of sightseers visiting the pyramids and other historical landmarks of the Charnean capital, it has gradually transformed into a more diversified economy with the growth of the large casino resorts of Agnannet turning hospitality and the restaurant industry from secondary activities to major fixtures of the city's economy. In the 21st century, these service industries have continued to expand and have outpaced the growth of the yet dominant manufacturing firms established in the city, with significant financial, real estate and entertainment firms beginning to appear over the past decade in the desert metropolis.
Education
Healthcare
Transportation
Timɣar Amejj
The "Great Artery" of Agnannet was built in 1890 to connect the competing Great Tenere and Agnannet Central railway hubs on near-opposite sides of the city, and would quickly become the central axis of the modern city. The Timɣar Amejj was originally a simple rail connection to link up the disconnected rail hubs by cutting directly through the old city and Palace district. However, the corridor would eventually be widened with highway-style roadways built to either side of it and a raised track for the Agnannet light rail and tram service to run over top of the heavy rail of the original line below. As the city industrialized, the significance of the Timɣar Amejj as an urban freight line and central conduit for general transportation skyrocketed, with most businesses and factories setting up as close to the Great Artery as possible to gain easy access for its goods and input resources to be delivered and carried off, as well as to facilitate the movement of the workforce to and from the factories. Taken as a whole, the Timɣar Amejj is one of the highest volume transit routes anywhere in the world, transporting millions of people and thousands of tons of goods.
Public Transit
The Agnannet public transportation system, centered on the Great Tenere and Agnannet Central train stations as well as the Citadel transit hub, consists of a network of metros, light rail and bus lines permeating the 75 districts of the city. Each of the four quarters of the city is traversed from end to end by at least one superexpress metro line with numerous tributary lines which run between stations along the superexpress line and outlying neighborhoods across the ward, in addition to the local trains running along the same tracks and tunnels as the ward's superexpress line. The network of local bus lines, express BRT systems and the Agnannet Light Rail network provide further coverage across the districts where the relatively limited tunnels and raised platforms of the metro system do not reach and generally provide wider coverage within a given ward while the metro system provides long distance transport across the city with lower transit times and fewer transfers making it ideal for commuters traveling from peripheral neighborhoods in outer Agnannet to their jobs in the city center or the commuter centers of their ward. The distribution of public transit is significantly denser in the northern half of the city than the south, as both of the city's main hubs are in its northern half. This leaves the south with a significantly lower density and directness of transit options, making some of its districts relatively isolated from the rest of the city by municipal transit systems.
Railroads
The city of Agnannet is the junction point for the Great Scipian Railway, the Southern Railway and the Awakar Line. The Great Scipian Railway passes through the Great Tenere railway station in the northwest of the city as served as the original railway hub of the city and the main link from the capital to the rest of the country. This rail line connects the six most populous and economically important cities in Charnea and traverses most of the country's east-west expanse, allowing it to serve as the central artery of the entire country. The Agnannet Central station, build more to the interior of the city and in the eastern Tajiwen district, has many more important connections to the city's public transit system than its counterpart, and serves as the main linkage to the Awakar Line which runs between Agnannet and the Tyreseian capital of New Tyria to the north as well as the Southern Railway, running through the Agala towards the Ozeros sea via eastern Itayana. The two major rail hubs of the city are connected by the Timɣar Amejj. Agnannet is also the hub for numerous regional rail lines connecting outlying communities in Achra and some of the neighboring provinces to the Agnannet metropolis. Western regional lines primarily connect at the Great Tenere station, with eastern lines linking up to the corresponding Agnannet Central station.
Airports
The main air travel hub in Charnea is Agnannet International Airport, located far to the northeast of the city.