Xallipan Republic
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Xallipan Republic πππ°πΏπ°π»ππ°π»π¬πΏπ°π·π¬π»π ππ°πππ¨πΉπ°π Tlacatlatocayotl Xallipan | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
| Motto: Garden of Stone and Sky | |
| Anthem: Xallipan the Beautiful | |
| Capital and | Tzopilopan |
| Recognised regional languages | Pame |
| Ethnic groups (2022) | Nahuas, Caxcan, Xiyui and Nyaxu |
| Demonym(s) | Xallan |
| Government | Constituent Republic |
β’ Techiuhqui | Qonto Xiwa |
| Legislature | Xallipan Nenonotzaloyan |
| Constituent of Zacapican | |
| Population | |
β’ 2022 census | 3,969,381 |
The Xallipan Republic (Nahuatl: πππ°πΏπ°π»ππ°π»π¬πΏπ°π·π¬π»π ππ°πππ¨πΉπ°π, Tlacatlatocayotl Xallipan) is the northernmost of the nine constituent republics of Zacapican, bordering Yadokawona to the north, southern Kayahallpa to the west, and the Zacapine constituent republics of Cuauhtlaco and Ayomazaco to the south. With a population of just under 4 million, it is the smallest constituent republic in terms of population. As in the larger constituent republics, Xallipan has a highly concentrated urban population. 43% of the entire population of Xallipan live in Tzopilopan, the Republic's capital city, and nearly two thirds of all Xallans live in the Tzopilopan and Cuauhuatzal metropolitan areas. As a result of this level of dense population in a relatively small area of the country, the vast majority of the Xallipan Republic is very sparsely populated. The average population density of the entire Republic is 14 persons per square kilometer, which drops to just 2 people per square kilometer across the vast majority of Xallipan once the urban Tzopilopan and Cuauhuatzal valleys are factored out. This is due in large part to the geography of Xallipan, which is dominated by the plateau of the same name at an average of 3000 meters of altitude and is for the most part arid and inhospitable to human settlement.
Mining, extraction and processing forms the basis of the Xallan economy. The region is especially rich in cupriferous ores which at times contain trace amounts of silver and gold. It was this gold which drew waves of immigration to rural parts of Xallipan in the 1920s. As gold is in fact relatively scarce in the region, most of the migrants either settled into copper mining towns or found work in the factories of the Tzopilopan area. Xallan industries are built upon the foundation of copper extraction. The arid countryside of the Xallipan plateau and the Xallan Mixtepemec is dotted with small copper mining railway towns supported by a small amount of local agricultural activity, llama and goat herding, and food imports from the rest of Zacapican. A network of narrow-gauge mountain railways connect these remote towns to the rail hub at Tzopilopan, where ores are processed, refined into metals, and turned into various components and parts in the valley factories. Many parts of the Xallipan Republic are well visited tourist destinations. While the Tzopilopan valley economically benefits the most from year-round tourism, there are also many old mining towns on the Xallipan plateau that have turned into resort towns as means to survive economically in the face of local mine closures. Northern Xallipan is known to have lithium in similar concentrations to Yadokawona across the border to the north. Lithium is a highly contentious topic in Xallipan, as it is a point of conflict between industrial calpolli in Tzopilopan and Cuauhuatzal who would benefit economically from a local supply of the precious element and the rural communities actually inhabiting the lithium rich highlands whose water supplies would be adversely affected by the brine mining techniques that would be used to extract the lithium.
History
Geography
The eponymous Xallipan plateau is the dominant geographic feature of the entire republic. It consists of a 200,000 square kilometer elevated zone of largely flat, arid land. The plateau is divided into three drainage basins, these being the Greater Tzopilopan valley basin which encompasses the upper Yoliliz River watershed, as well as the Northern Xallipan and Cuauhuatzal valley endorheic basins. The latter two of the major basins produce very large salt flats which are exceptionally barren but has provided a source of economic sustenance for the local Pame communities since before the industrialization wave and the boom in copper mining came to Xallipan. The rest of the Xallipan Republic's territory is taken up by the heights of the Mixtepemec mountain range which bisects all of Zacapican. These mountains run along the western edge of Xallipan for the most part, abutting the border with Kayahallpa, before turning east in the southern third of Xallipan and splitting the southwestern Cuauhuatzal valley from the rest of the Xallipan plateau. The entire region is geologically active and suffers from earthquakes which especially affect its western regions, such as the disastrous 1941 Cuauhuatzal earthquake. The geologically active nature of the Mixtepemec mountains is also responsible for the creation of large porphyry copper deposits as a result of volcanic processes, as well as many other ore-rich geological formations that occur in this remote region. Most of the Xallan territory has mineral rich geology, but the areas which are exploited are mostly limited to the Xallipan plateau due to the difficulty in extracting from the high mountains of the Mixtepemec themselves.
Economy
The Xallan economy is one is famed for being largely self-reliant and resistant to major shocks. This is because it is built upon a foundation of vertically integrated copper-based extraction, processing and manufacturing which does not really heavily upon imports from the rest of Zacapican and is therefore capable of operating largely unaffected by serious fluctuations elsewhere in Zacapican for a period of time. Because of the high value and versatility of its copper products in the global economy, Xallipan is also able to export its products overseas should demand in the domestic market fall for any reason. It is only the more advanced manufacturing sector that the Xallan economy becomes more interconnected with the rest of Zacapican, where plastic, aluminum and steel inputs are needed for finished products rather than the intermediate components most of the Xallan factories produce. Xallipan is also a net importer of food, as agricultural production in the region has lagged behind its growth in population over the last century, even when accounting for the major improvements in agriculture enabled by major infrastructure projects like the Moyocoya Dam and Lake Seti. However, the food supply in Zacapican is far less prone to the effects of market fluctuation thanks to the peculiarities of the agricultural calpolli system and agricultural subsidies from the government, making food import dependency a less pressing economic concern for Xallipan.