World Building: Empires, Borders, & Maps

The boundaries that we draw to separate ourselves are very simple yet very wacky as a concept they show that you guys get to use this land and you guys get to use that land but even this gets tricky because who is you and you and where

Exactly is the line where should it be and how did it get like this naturally there are a lot of conflicts over this stuff today we’ll talk about how empires and kingdoms get the borders that they do and how they work let’s start with borders on the ground and then that

Other stuff nowadays our view of borders and countries isn’t very grounded for most of history humans have not been able to see a satellite view of their territory so when we talk about borders we’re less talking about these lines and more about these ones it’s both convenient and strategic to use rivers

And mountaintops as borders because they’re well defined lines and they’re good at blocking armies but not all boundaries can fall on natural features like these the Romans dealt with this by setting up frontier walls forts and watchtowers which were interconnected with roads for troop and baggage transport along areas which needed particularly strong

Defenses like along Germany Scotland and the Danube people that lived near the edge of the empire could make a living trading goods across it either by going through the great guarded gates or by crossing the stretches of the border which were totally open and rather unmarked this is where the concept of

Border lands and marches come into play since marking an exact boundary is difficult for large areas oftentimes the line would blur out to the land around it and the entire region would become a buffer zone with a a bit more autonomy secondly cultural and political influence from both sides and three a

Lot of fighting in ancient states power and order tended to emanate from the political centers but those usually weren’t very close to the border so there could be a lot of lawlessness in these areas all this made a ruling borderlands understandably difficult so Kings would only appoint competent and loyal people

To the position giving it a social status boost over the Earl’s of the heartland various one such March was Catalonia in the 800s having just been conquered by great Charlie from the Umayyad Caliphate Catalonia became part of this Spanish March a border zone stretching across the Pyrenees which

Included Visigothic and Basque powers in it to all this was set up to protect Frankia from the Muslims who had previously pushed into France because they were still in the middle of their golden age but Islamic forces could never capture the Christian kingdom of Asturias in northern iberia because the

Terrain was mountainous and the advantage was homefield many nobles that were ousted by the Umayyads fled to Asturias and it became a foothold for the Reconquista the major players fort like Portugal Castile and Aragon were established from the remnants of Asturias and the Spanish march and as Islamic power declined in the region

These kingdoms came to fill the void this is why the Reconquista kingdoms look so vertical so all you Spanish and Portuguese out there you all better thank those basks in Catalonians oh boy I wish I could talk about the Islamic caliphates here but I think I’m gonna

Save those for another video one where I can talk more about religion anyways just like Russia carving and colonizing its way across Siberia just because it could cause who’s gonna stop them let’s go to the other side of the mind-blowing Lea massive landmass to the northern border of China everyone knows about its

Great wall but not everyone knows it’s actually a strung together mess of individual walls some going back as far as the six 80s BCE like this one walls the most frontier walls up there would look like this being made of mud and thatch with a giant rows of wooden

Spikes in front of them the famous portions of the Great Wall were completed by the Ming Dynasty in the 1300s these walls were pretty awesome with watchtowers equipped with beacons to quickly alert the troops and walls designed to protect soldiers while they fired down at

Mieze plus parts of it we’re as thick as the hippo and Madagascar the top of the wall could be used as a road to move soldiers across the frontier and all of this was needed to protect the Chinese from the hostile nomads to the north and reminder that this is right after the

Chinese had kicked the Mongols out so they weren’t screwing around with those nomads anymore of course they used a lot of forced labor and had such harsh conditions that the words Great Wall basically meant death camp but the job got done the thing is frontier fortifications are

Hard so they crumble holes appear and people would learn to get around them easily such as the Manchus when they rode down and overthrew the Ming but you can’t talk about the empire and borders of China without talking about how it gets its power and to do that we need to

Talk about its people under the Han Dynasty China had a population of roughly sixty million people about the same as the Roman Empire at the time but a vast amount of the people in China were ethnically Han Chinese who were culturally and linguistically related to each other whereas the ancient

Mediterranean was a mishmash of allied and conquered peoples that had to become romanized the Chinese homeland of the yellow and Yangtze River Valley’s were a super fertile be super big and G surrounded by some pretty decent defensive features like jungles to the south mountains to the west and deserts

To the north all this plus a handy dandy little crop called rice in China’s wet climate made them able to have a huge population so they conquered and settled and spread their culture outwards and since they were mostly connected by two river systems and the Grand Canal communications and trade were fairly easy

The ethnically Han Chinese populations basically came to outclass everyone in its immediate area like the Vietnamese Koreans Manchus we Gers Tibetans and the minority Chinese groups in the south and southeast of the country yeah crimes against humanity the pre-modern Chinese state was focused around controlling all of the Chinese people if the

Ruling dynasty ran China well and kept things stable then things were good things got invented the population would grow there was time for poetry paper sex but if not then people would get stabbed and they’d either be replaced by another dynasty who’d hopefully make way for more poetry and voluptuous boinks or

Everything would just fall apart and be split up the split regional lords just might end up spending decades embroiled in civil wars that killed tens of millions a week or fractured Chinese nation could invite other powers in or be reunited by one of these previously mentioned regional faction the thing

About borders is that what’s going on while they look great on a map they’re complicated and messy in reality nowadays we take it for granted that we can use modern surveying techniques and GPS to find out exactly where we are and draw borders accordingly if you stand on

One side of an imaginary line you’re in the Netherlands and subject to their laws but you take a step forward in your own Belgium before all that borders were often based on natural barriers like rivers and mountains and they definitely weren’t rigid the exact nature this took

Was varied to say the way James tOA’s what are you doing here correcting some historical misconceptions for your audience for more centralized empires and kingdoms like Rome or most of the Chinese dynasties the borders were marked by forts and Garrison’s they were meant to block things like raids and

Hostile armies from coming into their territory but by the time you reach the frontier the ability of the rulers to enforce their laws and collects taxes was less effective than in the heartland in places that were less centralized like feudal france borders were even less well defined because of the nature

Of French feudalism local lords and barons fought with each other a lot even though they all swore allegiance to the same King this meant that you could only have territory if you could hold on to it while others were angling to take it from you in short the border was as far

As the Lord could project his power though it followed the same idea of a frontier of course the term country is also problematic here because the idea of national sovereignty didn’t really come about until 1648 not to mention that even outside the official borders of places like Rome

They’re often lived tribes that were allies or vassals that were arguably part of the same polity which makes things even more confusing and difficult to explain if you ever see a map of pre-modern countries just know that the borders are more of an approximation of how far the rulers could project their

Power than they are hard lines in the sand and then there’s the matter of drawing borders on ethnic lines which is another modern invention the issues with this are just there are so many cool thank you for those brilliant points now get the [ __ ] out of my cyberspace what’s

I have so much more to say sure you do remember kids the editor has all the power even from just a political map you could tell that China and Rome were the supreme powers in their spheres so then how does a power be a kingdom Empire nation state or any organized polity

Appear in ancient times it often starts with tribes and cities the line between tribe and state is very hazy if it even exists at all to get a taste of what a land dominated by tribes would look like take a gander at Israel before a good old King Dave was in charge now

I would never bother marking something like this on a world map because these are just too small to be convenient I will just gather these together and label them Israelite tribes I’d also suggest the same thing for city-states and maybe make distinct to the really important ones but they’re all important

Oftentimes multiple tribes will band together under one leader or a council and all their collective Holdings will become the state this is what happened in northern Gaul after the fall of Rome as Germanic tribes came together and United to become the Franks another likely scenario is that one group grows

In power one way that this happens is trade Venice and Mali are two good trade powers to look at the venice’s Empire was expanded to these areas to protect its dominance in the Adriatic and it’s trade routes which were coming in from the east the Empire of Mali only existed

Because it’s at the intersection of a bunch of things most importantly it was between the gold mines of the south and the salt mines of the north so it grew immensely powerful controlling this trade and the production of these resources the Empire also started really close to the stretch of land between the

Nigeria and Senegal rivers which were both used to travel around and expand the Empire and finally it’s in the savanna between the Sahara and the rainforest which is much better for empires because you can do things like drink water builds roads and sorghum another way that a power can arise is

Through Mary hapsburgs hapsburgs this family basically became a political company in the business of dealing out sons and daughters to acquire more land wealth and resources marrying one of your own into another political dynasty could forge a strong alliance or pool the two families holdings for much of Habsburg history

Their lands were distributed to family members and governed separately they started out from owning only this castle in northern Switzerland but came to rule this and this after the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain married Habsburg they made a son congratulations guys charles v and he inherited each of

The Hapsburgs domains as their respective rulers died perhaps big mato really tells it leave the waging of Wars to others but you happy Austria marry for the realms which Maas Awards to others Venus transfers to you obviously this whole not waging wars thing both didn’t

Quite work out and left a lot of the earlier Habsburg monarchy s domains scattered and separated much as the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t that day speaking of the HRE everyone knows it as dumb it’s that one kind of Kingdom that’s made up of a hundred sort of kingdoms well to be fair

It grew out of a normal Kingdom when the Pope crowned the Emperor of East Frankia now Germany as the successor of the Roman Empire see the Holy Roman Empire had a king but it was an elected position this has been a custom in Germanic tribes for a long time

Surviving through the Franks and into the throne of the HRE this gave an initially small group of German nobles and clergy power over who became the king which led to concessions in royal power to the electors in exchange for being elected emperor sorry pal that’s politics the landowners in the

Area had also been splitting up their states among all their sons for a while now instead of just giving the whole realm to the eldest son this had fragmented the area pretty thoroughly there’s a lot more behind the scenes to the 600 year long disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire like feudalism periods

Without kings and property laws and customs but let’s just keep it at that for now because it’s already complicated not when creating an empire or state on a map I always start out with the core regions of power there should be well in control of this state and far away from

Other Empire’s core regions of power from this area the state’s power should emanate and when things are good they should control all the lands directly around it a good example of this is the Byzantine Empire whose core was Constantinople so they first and foremost controlled Greece and Anatolia

When the Ottomans started rising whose core was in Anatolia the Byzantines were pressed further and further back until they were squeezed between the Ottomans for smaller States the environment of the core area is going to be where it expands to if it’s mountains they’ll be more likely to stick to the mountains

Like in Armenia it gives a sort of home territory advantage for whatever biome they exist in so expanding out would be a bit easier of course this isn’t always the case maybe the mountain peoples will expand down a valley because what are the valley people gonna do attack up didn’t

They learn anything from episode three but four big empires this isn’t as important because they’re expanding outward into many different areas when drawing this just think about it where would the Empire want to expand why would they want this and how could they get it and how can they keep it lightning round

One got rivers trade unity and irrigation then along coasts for fish trade unity and transport fertile areas for food because nobody likes a starving proletariat class then you have good places for trade because you can tax that and you can make money places with resources are a no-brainer get those

Resources get the victory points and you win settlers of catan then places in between places that you already owned because you’re gonna want it plus places with problem peoples that are weak enough to take because entirely then places with history and big social value for glory good intellect and gold

Of course then go up to the natural borders because it’s hard to bring an army and trade over mountains deserts jungles and rivers and then anywhere you can reasonably expand – and then keep because screw it why not the biggest and most dramatic way to grow an empire war war never changes

Except with the invention of new military technologies but otherwise no one really wants to be subjugated by somebody else but some places are just irresistible in Mesoamerica different civilizations have been fighting for thousands of years taking and losing the upper hand over each other just like anywhere else the Aztecs are probably

The most well known though but why cuz it was there when the Spanish arrived their empire was started in the heavily populated Mexico River Valley when the three city-states dish Goku pluck open and dental sheet blown sack to the city of azcapotzalco which had dominated some of the valley

For a while put simply this triple city alliance would send a bunch of guys to go out and beat up people until they agreed to be clients in a patronage system giving the three city-states tribute warriors and hostages in exchange for protection and autonomy as Tenochtitlan grew to be the most

Powerful city of the three the core mushiya population was greatly enriched by its hegemonic empire the Aztecs could do this because they were a warrior society their patron God was the God of War and the Sun Witzel a portly young boys were schooled in service and

Fighting all men had to serve in the military and the noble class was made up of warriors who had gained prestige that’s right earned Aztec warriors were especially fierce and before the Empire rose they were often hired out as elite shock troops you can see in a map of Aztec

Holdings that they’re well missing a few parts the big one being the city of gloss color even though it was surrounded by Aztec tributaries it maybe would have fallen to the Aztecs eventually had this banished not shown up and ruined it but the holes in the Aztec territory make

The entire thing seem cool Tosh kala was the main enemy of the Triple Alliance but they were also in nahuatl just like the Aztecs so then why weren’t they’ve taken over of course the clash Colin say that they were fierce enough to beat the Aztecs fair enough but the Aztecs claim that

They left it alone so that they could have a steady supply of captives for human sacrifice war in this region was weird because the main focus was often to capture enemy warriors for the sacrifice to the gods rather than butchering them right there and then just a few extra steps this

Gives a good insight into how a cultural trait could change in Empire’s borders one way to make a state look like it has a lot of history behind it is to give it visual I’ll call them inconsistencies a lot of world builders think that this kind of thing is bad there are always

People saying that that doesn’t make any sense after de left ring destroyed but real history and maps are full of stupidly weird inconsistencies that always seem pointless but there’s absolutely a reason for it being that way I like my world building to reflect back another good example of this is with Alexander’s

Macedonia since Alexander was Greek One would expect that his empire would have included all of Greece and the surrounding areas but nope Alexander’s father Philip never really came around to conquering Sparta and he was content to call up iris and Ally instead of part of his domain instead Philip took a lot

Of Sparta surrounding lands gave them to the people that submitted to him and Connelly told Sparta to suck its own penis Sparta later attacked the Macedonians and Alexander’s region in the area beat them totally weakened Sparta wasn’t a concern for Alexander but the peace agreement let the Spartans continue existing autonomously it also

Seems like oftentimes in history there are groups of people that are taken over but they still get to exist in the fringes of the land in India indo-european groups took over the entire subcontinent except for the tip which remained in Dravidian hands in ancient France the original Gauls were

Overtaken by Italians and Germans but the Breton’s remained on this peninsula at the very edge and on the fringes of the fringes of Europe the other Gaelic countries like Wales Ireland Scotland and Cornwall remain can you know me I’m always looking out for y’all Cornish dudes the most common method of

Dominating one or more groups was by simply having more people than them but this often led to other issues down the line damn it not this again oh yes this again you can’t shut me out forever Stoney I’m gonna teach you whether you like it or not empires where multiple

Ethnic groups are dominated by another go back as far as the very idea of empires since it was just whoever could fight best was in charge if an ethnic group is split across multiple countries then a shared sense of identity can be a way to unify them like Germany and Italy

In the nineteenth century but if you’re a big Empire with a variety of ethnicities then their desire for independence can lead to trouble if one of them breaks away then the others will want to and then you don’t have an empire anymore in the aftermath of World War one several multi-ethnic empires

Broke up or lost some of their territory the most notable being austria-hungary if you look at a map like this then there’s some serious border core already but keep in mind that it only shows the largest ethnic group in each area there are plenty of Germans living in mostly

Hungarian land or Hungarians living in most serve land if you move the border to include a Hungarian town in Hungary then suddenly you have a town of poles stuck there who are unhappy but if you move it the other way then the Hungarians are unhappy the solution that some use to

Solve this problem was to just have people move across the border into their ethnic groups country sometimes they did this voluntarily other times they were forcibly removed I’d like to lighten the mood here somehow but it’s difficult to make jokes when you’re talking about ethnic cleansing for a more recent example look

At the breakup of Yugoslavia that’s not even counting things like one group living in a town or village dominated by another or areas with three or more groups where there’s no clear majority and I don’t even want to touch on how making a country specifically for one

Group can create and promote a mindset that countries should be pure and that you should get rid of people considered other many people have blamed post-colonial conflicts in Africa and the Middle East on borders ignoring ethnic divisions but quite frankly factoring them in could have been just

As bad or worse and don’t even get me started on the partition of India calling this messy is like calling a tornado a breeze my point is that while drawing borders to give every group their own homeland might sound great on paper pulling it off without a bunch of

People dying is not impossible you can’t shut me out of my own channel you just passed me in some fight me IRL scrum or lastly in the way of looking at historical powers you get one of the strangest but most intriguing examples the inca macchu kanji yoga mechanic Pachacuti key in Kakuna parappa

See not many empires in history are vertical because climate changes with latitude and ruling over different climates usually means you have to rule over people who live differently from each other hard to do but the Incas were in the mountains and while it seems like that would hinder their development it’s

What allowed them to expand mountains are a patchwork of different climate areas that can change dramatically over very short distances but can also have matching climate zones all along the range in these similar climate zones with differing growing altitudes for each crop they could form all sorts of

Things potatoes corn Quinn Noah quinoa and cotton this enabled people to live in these harsh mountains but it doesn’t quite explain how they managed to flourish and create a highly organized state since one would think Patrick areas would give rise to patchwork political entities they didn’t even have

Good draft animals or the wheel and they were just starting to make bronze plus rainfall in the Andes is super inconsistent and not predictable the simplest answer to all of this is teamwork a highly organized government was created to overcome these harsh conditions with cooperative building and planting terraces were constructed on

The mountain sides for farming but these required massive amounts of technical skill planning resources and labor to build and maintain but they produced a lot of food and any surplus would be dried and stored by the state in case of an emergency the Incas made everyone help build these

Projects which increased food output communications and Public Works there was also no money and no opportunity for the average citizen to gain wealth pretty much all their needs were taken in and given out by the centralized government do you know what this means we finally found a place where communism works All of this made them viable for some good old military conquest and suddenly they owned most of the Andes and suddenly the Spanish owned most of the Andes when placing the borders on your maps you should already have a general idea of a few things coastlines terrain rivers and biomes specifically the

States in your world will be affected by these often being blocked by things like mountains and deserts but following things like rivers and grasslands though definitely be adding and changing things as you go along to make things more interesting when looking at the shape of a state itself there’s a couple ways to

Go about creating it first geometrically take a look at France for example it’s basically a Pentagon with the sides pinched in and what about blobs if a state has one center of power especially if that Center isn’t on a river or the sea then that state’s influence may

Radiate outwards in a blah Bueller fashion that is until it bumps up with other states and then they fight and hell you can even go geometric with the borders themselves I mean if areas were colonized by people with advanced surveying technology look at Africa those countries being made in modern

Times by people that didn’t live there not natural borders and finally there’s the most effective tool in creating countries on maps copy the shapes of real countries but never Foley the worst thing on a fantasy map is looking and seeing that oh there’s Brazil need if you’re drawing your borders out and you

Take inspiration from a large section of real country you may want to focus on making the rest of it purposefully look different but hey I’m not here to judge your world building decisions just to show you some maps and spell