The Gold Coast (Urcea)

The Gold Coast is a term referring to the western coastal region of Urcea and its most populous. It includes the Archduchy of Urceopolis and the provinces of Southmarch, the Cape, Afoncord, and Callan.

The Gold Coast, named for its mercantile history within the context of Adonerum, makes up the majority of Urcea's west coast and extends. The area is very hot and very wet, though much of it has been adapted for agricultural and later urban use; the great Levantine jungle which encompassed both it and Gassavelia is now largely confined to Gassavelia. The Urce River serves as a major transportation corridor as well as a major ecological site in the northern part of the Coast. Besides being merely a geographic area, however, it has remained a source of identity. The Vavura River, which broadly divides Urcea into north and south portions, also bisects the Gold Coast and sits at its approximate center. Though not as thoroughly transformed as the Urcean frontier, significant parts of the Gold Coast have been subject to land reclamation, especially marshy, salty land in and around the provinces of the Cape and Callan.

People from within the Gold Coast, along with Alveria, consider themselves to be the historically "settled" and "civilized" part of Urcea with the remaining part being either foreign or frontier in some variety, an attitude which some scholars posit originated in Great Levantia. Accordingly, the Gold Coast was viewed as the source of civilization for the rest of the country, especially as residents of the region were settled elsewhere as Ómestaderoi, a program which brought increasing cultural integration throughout the possessions of the Julian dynasty that would become a cohesive Urcean nation.

The Gold Coast (and especially the Archduchy of Urceopolis is one of the most densely populated places in the world, and its residents form a third of the population of Urcea as well as the place of origin of the Riparian Urceans. Prior to the resettlement of the Gold Coast by Gaelic people and the cultural exchange that created the Urcean people, it was the seat of Great Levantia, one of the ancient world's largest empires and the largest empire in the history of Levantia. The agricultural yields in ancient times allowed the Latinic people who settled in the Gold Coast to become numerous and prosperous, spreading out throughout the rest of the continent. Following the collapse of Great Levantia, the Gold Coast was divided among many different states, including the Duchy of Urceopolis, the cities of the Latin League, and other polities. It was gradually reunified by the Julian dynasty under the Holy Levantine Empire, culminating with the creation of Urcea as a Kingdom in 1098, though the unification itself would not be fully complete until centuries later.

History

For most of human history, the Gold Coast has been the center of major agricultural and urban development for more than a thousand years. Prior to the Latin Heroic Age, the Gold Coast was predominantly settled by Gaelic people, who established small cities and extensive agricultural clearances in addition to retaining hunter-gatherer lifestyles. The arrival of the Latinic people heralded the dawn of more extensive urbanization, especially along the Urce River itself. For the first several hundred years of Latin settlement of Levantia, Latins were mostly contained to the Gold Coast, and for a time the term Levantia and the Coast were considered interchangeable. The Latin-urbanized Gold Coast eventually gave rise to the first very large polity in Levantine history, Great Levantia. Emerging from the Urceopolitan city state, Great Levantia became a continent-spanning empire thousands of miles in breadth. At its height, the Gold Coast - along with Alveria and parts of Dericania - were considered to be the core parts of the empire. During the peak of Great Levantia, the Gold was divided into five provinces and the region directly adjacent to Urceopolis, known simply as "Urcea".

After about 1 AD, the demographic, political, and economic "center" of Great Levantia gradually began to shift eastward with the conquest of Gaul. During this middle Antiquity period, Urceopolis was the capital city and center of power for the Great Levantine state, but had not yet established clear demographic supremacy over the earlier-established coastal Latin cities along the Creagmer. Accordingly, the ancient Gold Coast saw relatively uniform economic growth both along the coast and up the Urce River. Between the major cities were an untold number of small-hold farmers, considered the traditional source of Great Levantia's military manpower.

The region saw significant economic change from the transition of the state from republic to potentate, especially as slaves from the east and eventually Gaul were imported into the region. The massive importation of Gallian slaves had an overall negative impact on the economy of the core region, as most small-holders were replaced by sprawling plantations primarily worked by slaves. The Gold Coast's cities grew significantly during this period, and especially Urceopolis. The economy and society of the modern Gold Coast area remained in this condition through late antiquity until the eventual transition to serfdom began.

The modern Gold Coast was the part of Levantia most grievously affected by the decline and fall of Great Levantia in terms of demographics and economic condition.

Economy

The economy of the Gold Coast is largely characterized by major urban centers, with both the service and real estate industries serving as the two largest in this region.

Culture

The Gold Coast is considered by many to be the cultural heart of Urcea. The region is the historic heartland of the Riparians, the predominant ethnic group of Urcea, and many of Urcea's primary social traditions originate in the Gold Coast.

Accordingly, much of the music and cuisine usually associated with Urcea can predominantly trace their origins to the Coast.

Despite being viewed as culturally monolithic by those Urceans who live outside the Gold Coast, the culture of the Gold Coast is generally diverse based on geography. According to both scholars and cultural observers, the traditional "Coastal culture" primarily only exists in a uniform basis in the Urce River corridor from south of Urceopolis within the Archduchy to the northeastern corner of the province of Westglen, and in suburbs radiating out from those urban centers. "Coastal" in this description is a misnomer as the actual Creagmer coastal cities are considered to have a slightly divergent culture. Adherents of this "Creagmer culture" have their own unique culture which has a historical foundation in maritime commerce and fishing, with significant influences from Sarpedon and the Ancient Istroyan civilization incorporated throughout the millennia. These people, generally referred to as "Capers and Coasters", are more similar to people living in the Urcean Island region than those living in and around the city of Urceopolis.