Castadilla
Most Serene Sovereignty of Castadilla Six official names
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Motto: ¡Patría o Muerte, No Pasarán! ("Homeland or Death, They Shall Not Pass!") | |||||||||||||
Anthem: Castadillaan March | |||||||||||||
 Location of Castadilla (dark green) | |||||||||||||
| Capital | Santa Maria | ||||||||||||
| Largest city | Adouka | ||||||||||||
| Official languages | |||||||||||||
| Recognised regional languages | |||||||||||||
| Unrecognised regional languages | |||||||||||||
| Ethnic groups | By race:
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| Religion |
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| Demonym(s) | Castadillaan | ||||||||||||
| Government | Federal Velvetine parliamentary socialist semi-elective semi-constitutional monarchy | ||||||||||||
• Emperor | Maximilian I | ||||||||||||
| Francisco Carvalho | |||||||||||||
| Legislature | National Assembly | ||||||||||||
| Congress of the Peerage | |||||||||||||
| Congress of the Commons | |||||||||||||
| Formation | |||||||||||||
| 21 May 1976 | |||||||||||||
| 1 May 1977 | |||||||||||||
| 30 April 1984 | |||||||||||||
• Borbon's victory | 17 December 1989 | ||||||||||||
| 31 December 1996 | |||||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||||
• Total | 1,810,919.69 km2 (699,200.00 sq mi) | ||||||||||||
• Water (%) | 5.5 | ||||||||||||
• Land area | 1,711,049.75 km2 (660,640.00 sq mi) | ||||||||||||
• Water area | 99,869.94 km2 (38,560.00 sq mi) | ||||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||||
• Estimate | 58,912,542 (2034) | ||||||||||||
• Census | 58,284,405 (2032) | ||||||||||||
• Density | 37.14/km2 (96.2/sq mi) | ||||||||||||
| GDP (PPP) | 2031 estimate | ||||||||||||
• Total | $4.711 trillion | ||||||||||||
• Per capita | $90,028 | ||||||||||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2031 estimate | ||||||||||||
• Total | $2.474 trillion | ||||||||||||
• Per capita | $47,284 | ||||||||||||
| Gini (2031) |  31.5medium | ||||||||||||
| HDI (2031) |  0.796high | ||||||||||||
| Currency | Peseta (CSP) | ||||||||||||
| Mains electricity | 230 V–50 Hz | ||||||||||||
| Driving side | right | ||||||||||||
| Calling code | +422 | ||||||||||||
| Internet TLD | .cs | ||||||||||||
Castadilla (Latin: Castraediliae; Pelaxian: Castadilla; Reform Tainean: Kastetia), officially the Most Serene Sovereignty of Castadilla (Latin: Serenissima Dominatio Castraediliae; Pelaxian: Serenísima Soberanía de Castadilla; Reform Tainean: Serenisim Sauberanetas des Kastetia), is a sovereign country located in eastern Vallos. It shares a land border with Takatta Loa in the southwest, Vallejar in the south, the Caphirian exclave of Vespera in the north, and it shares a maritime border with the Cartadanian state of Porta Bianca in the northeast and Puertego in the southeast. Through the state of Samalosi, located in Peratra, Castadilla also shares a land border with Tierrador through its commonwealth of Teschego. Its main coastline runs throughout the Taínean Sea. Like its neighbours, Castadilla is a megadiverse nation boasting one of the highest biodiversity across the biomes within it.
The Castadillaan economy is a mixed economy with elements of tripartism and dirigism with most public services (most notably healthcare, electricity, and mass public transport) being controlled by the government. However, private industries are permitted to operate in most other sectors such as telecommunications, shipping, and retail. Uniquely, the Castadillaan government is a semi-elective semi-constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary system with a democratic dominant-party system and a fusion of powers with a powerful head of state.
From 1924 until 1984, Castadilla was under a regime greatly inspired by conservative and authoritarian ideologies complete with a sham democracy. This regime was known as the Delepasian Commonwealth, using the former Pelaxian name of the nation, which was governed by the Estado Social. This all changed with the Velvet Revolution in 1984 when a popular uprising forced the increasingly-unpopular Estado Social leadership to resign; the next ten years would be marked by a civil war period that would see multiple factions attempt to take control of the country before ending in 1994. The two years after the end of the Velvet Revolution would see the Castadillaan Constitution of 1996 getting passed; the new constitutional government would come under the dominant rule of the People's Democratic Party since 1997.
Castadilla is a member of the League of Nations, though it maintains a non-interventionist stance in international peacekeeping efforts.
Etymology
"Castadilla" originates in the year 1499 as a term referring to one of the Latinic polities in Vallos. Like with most Latin-based place names, "-ia" is a commonly-used suffix that is used to denote place names. That aside, Castadilla comes from Castraediliae, which was supposedly the name of the first Latinic polity to have come into contact with the first settlers from Pelaxia, and it means "land of the aedile's castle". Not much is known about who the "aedile" in question was, a lot of records from before the arrival of the Pelaxians were lost thanks to the warring states periods, nor why the Latins have decided to name their polity after said aedile's castle, though the fact that the name of the polity derives from such a term seems to suggest that the aedile must have been a very prominent individual.
History
Early Vallosi settlements and Glaistic culture
The first human settlements on the Vallosi subcontinent has been dated to the year 12,000 BC based on archaeological evidence. This makes Vallos one of the last parts of the Occident to have been initially settled. Material culture suggests that these settlers may have migrated from what is now Pelaxia. Society for the early Vallosi who have become sedentary was primarily agricultural, reaching to about forty percent by the year 2000 BC. As indigenous Vallosi society developed, they would eventually reach their apex with the rise of the Glaistic civilisation, so-called due to ancient Istroyan texts about the supposed hostility and savagry of the Vallosi people. Some of the more well-known examples of Glaistic culture include so-called "shark pottery", named as such due to the use of shark teeth and bones as a crafting material while at the same time depicting shark-related motifs on pottery, and their widespread usage of masks, one of the most common archaeological finds across Vallos from that time period. The Glaistic civilisation reached its peak at around 1800 BC, not long before the arrival of the Polynesians and later arrival of the first Heaven Ships from Crona. However, the Glaistic civilisation, at this point classified as 'later Glaistic civilisation' due to foreign innovations, co-existed with these groups for centuries to come.
Archaeological evidence aside, virtually nothing is known about the indigenous Vallosi or the Glaistic civilisation. Thanks to the lack of technological development and the lack of a proper writing system, the indigenous Vallosi culture was eventually lost through assimilation, intermarriage, and colonisation, thus leading to a near-total displacement. The average Castadillaan may have as much as less than ten percent DNA from the indigenous Vallosi according to genetic studies made in the year 1997.
Heaven Ships and the Loa
Sometime before 1000 BC, some strange ships would land on the northern shores of Vallos, carrying multitudes of passengers from Crona with most of them having been criminals and other undesirables. These ships arrived at very irregular intervals, often with multiple centuries between successful landings. Many of these passengers would typically go on to intermarry with the indigenous Vallosi, often taking on many cultural aspects of the Glaistic civilisation initially, but subsequent arrivals of Cronan peoples would soon lead to the Glaistic cultural traditions being largely supplanted by the traditions that the newly-arrived Cronans would bring with them alongside entirely new traditions. Nonetheless, the descendants of the Cronans who have arrived to Vallos from before 1000 BC until around 100 BC would become the ancestors of the Taineans, with the first instances of what could be recognised as an early form of Tainean culture emerging at around 500 BC.
On the southern shores of Vallos at around 1500 BC, groups of people would arrive having been the result of many years of essentially island-hopping from Peratra to their new homes. According to legend, these people had found the local agriculture of the Glaistics to be very suitable and began to harvest some for themselves only to be met with intense hostility from the Glaistics who promptly forced the newcomers to flee. This incident and rather violent form of first contact describes the origins of the hostilities between the Polynesian ancestors of the Loa and the indigenous Glaistics. The Polynesians would soon return in greater numbers and conducted a raid on coastal Glaistic settlements before finally establishing the first permanent Polynesian settlements in Vallos which in turn became the largest Polynesian settlements outside of their homeland of Peratra, taking up the southernmost third of mainland Vallos.
Early Latinic settlements
The first Occidental people to have settled in Vallos were the Latins from the Adonerii, a pre-Caphiric Latinic civilisation which had originated from the island of Urlazio. Due to the distance between Vallos and Urlazio, however, the Latins would not arrive on Vallos until 650 BC after Adonerii settlements in what is now Cartadania were of a sufficient enough size to send colonists. These first Latinic colonists would land on Porta Bianca, introducing the earliest instances of "true cities" to Vallos from which further colonial ambitions were fueled. Though early Latinic involvement in Vallos was relatively sparse at first, it would soon expand greatly at around 500 BC as refugees from Urlazio would migrate to Porta Bianca before migrating to mainland Vallos. This was further spurred on by the prospect of owning relatively fertile soil, many of which would be farmed by hired Tainean farm labourers further inland. It was also with the arrival of the Latins that the Glaistics would soon face eventual extinction, but not through conflict. Instead, the remaining Glaistics would simply have moved to Latinic urban areas for employment where they would gradually assimilate into the culture of their new overlords as they abandon their previous nomadic lifestyles in favour of a more sedentary way of life.
The largest of these Latinic polities was the Cacae Kingdom, which by the end of the 2nd Century BC had organised itself into becoming one of the foremost Latinic leagues in Vallos, complete with having among the most efficient and lucrative trade systems at that time. Indeed, the size and influence of the Cacae Kingdom enabled it to frequently send out ships to both the east and west coasts of the subcontinent in order to find new additions to its trade system as well as seeking new trade partnerships. The overall decentralised nature of the Cacae Kingdom, although instrumental in ensuring its rise and growth, was also instrumental in its downfall. Most of the regional administrators were of Tainean ancestry, and were increasingly resentful to the Cacae Kingdom once it began to attempt centralisation as well as mild assimilationism. These administrators retaliated by declaring themselves independent and to sever all trade relations with their former Latinic overlord. With numerous newly-independent Tainean polities declaring independence and effectively embargoing the Cacae Kingdom, the league would soon collapse due to an abrupt lack of trade.
Warring periods and Caphiric domination
The emergence of three major cultures in Vallos was largely met with a long period of skirmishes between multiple polities throughout the first half of the first millennium. The Polynesians largely stayed in the southern areas of mainland Vallos while the Taineans and the Latins were much more likely to fight against each other as various disputes would arise. This was especially noticeable in Latinic polities where Tainean labourers would often dispute various agreements made with their overlords, and in the southernmost parts of the subcontinent as Tainean and Latinic polities were often at odds with the seemingly rapidly-expanding Polynesian entities. The most predominant state to have existed prior to the arrival of the Imperium's diplomats was the Tainean Empire which had emerged after the collapse of the Cacae Kingdom and was centred around Lake Remenau which had put it in an apex trading position which helped it established connections to mainland Sarpedon.
As skirmishes began to flare up, so too did overtures in foreign outreach as many Vallosi polities sought alliances with powerful nations on mainland Sarpedon. The most notable being the First Caphiric Imperium when, starting in 600, diplomats were sent to the various entities throughout Vallos in hopes of securing the loyalty of any polity through promises of alliances in exchange for tributes to the Imperator. This series of affairs would continue for about a century until the Imperium, already making lots of money through these tributes, began to launch a series of interventions to establish an imperial hegemony over Vallos that was to be carved into eleven vassal states. The Tainean Empire was one of the few remaining independent states on the subcontinent.
This group of eleven Vallosi vassal states is known as the Undecimvirate and was largely grouped based on geographical features instead of cultures. Due to the distance between the Undecimvirate and Caphiria, however, the vassal states were mort akin to highly autonomous kingdoms for the most part so long as they kept paying their tribute to the Imperator. Punishment for defaulting on a tribute was severe as the Imperium would send an invasion force to depose the offending vassal monarch and replace him with a hopefully more compliant king. As none of the eleven vassal states wanted to be on the receiving end of an imperial invasion, all them at one point or another during the hegemonic period would conduct raids against their neighbours in hopes of extracting just enough for their tribute to Caphiria. This practice would greatly expand once tributes became a flat rate. Of course, this would effectively guarantee that at least one vassal state was going to be invaded by the Imperium. Despite the raids, the four centuries of Caphiric hegemony was largely noted for its relative stability compared to the preceding and succeeding warring states periods, with Christianity being introduced into Vallos for the first time, with almost all of the Undecimvirate, save for the Polynesian vassal states, adopting Christianity as the state religion.
The Undecimvirate would only collapse once the Second Imperium collapsed and there was no longer a major power to keep Vallos in line. The immediate effects began with the collapse of many of the former vassal kingdoms into smaller local polities under regional factions with nearly half of the eleven vassal dynasties extinguishing violently while the remaining dynasties would find themselves ruling over far smaller realms than what their ancestors had ruled over during the Undecimvirate. The only remaining vassal kingdoms to have survived were Septemontes and Sumania, while the Tainean Empire rump state, known as the Neo-Tainean Empire, became a frequent rival of the former for a brief time before it merged with them which resulted in the emergence of the Cuasilatins.
Colonial era
The centuries of Caphiric hegemony, although greatly impactful to the history of Vallos and Castadilla, was not considered a colonial era on account of the largely autonomous nature of the eleven vassal states. Instead, the earliest colonies came from the arrival of the Isurian captain Mauricio Delepas under the patronage of the King of Pelaxia. The nascent kingdom, itself a vassal state of Caphiria, had already established a viceroyalty in what is now Puertego in the 1480s, but the real prize was mainland Vallos and Delepas would embark on his first expedition to mainland Vallos in 1497. Upon landing on mainland Vallos, the area now known as the coast of Bahia, Delepas would establish the Viceroyalty of Los Rumas in the name of King Jeronimo I. It was through the viceroyalty that Vallos would be introduced to the episcopal hierarchy of the Catholic Church for the first time shortly after the arrival of Delepas, with the establishment of the Diocese of Los Rumas in 1498.
The new viceroyalty had expanded greatly throughout the 16th and 17th Centuries, with expansion greatly increasing after the Great Schism of 1615 when Pelaxia became independent, resulting in Septemontes being integrated into the Viceroyalty after having been under viceregal suzerainty for roughly a century. The schism led to the arrival of Latin Catholic refugees who have fled Caphiria once the Imperium began to persecute Catholics who did not join the Imperial Catholic Church. The most high-profile of these refugees was the Isurian Knights of Saint James whose banner would go on to become a popular military symbol for the viceroyalty. The viceroyalty would also serve as a strategic outpost for protecting Pelaxian interests in the Southern Route and battles between Pelaxia and Burgundie and Kiravia became relatively frequent. However, despite the prestige and autonomy the viceroyalty had held due to its wealth and distance from Albalitor, the rise of the Carto-Pelaxian Commonwealth during this time would force the viceroyalty to take a backseat, with the Pelaxian Crown seemingly snubbing them throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries.
The Commonwealth would eventually collapse in the latter years of the 18th Century, and the Pelaxian monarchy would collapse for the first time just a few years later. The collapse of the monarchy would play a huge role in the change in status for the viceroyalty, which by then had already established a new national identity in retaliation to the perceived neglect and snubbing that the Pelaxian Crown had given them. Such a change in status would ensure that the viceroyalty would be given precedence and even preference when the monarchy was restored in 1814, mostly due to the viceroyalty having enjoyed its status as an integral part of the First Pelaxian Republic which especially made it an imperative to appease the Delepasians through co-opting Delepasianism. During the remaining years of the Pelaxian monarchy, the Pelaxian monarchs would promise that plans were being drafted that would turn the viceroyalty into an independent nation under a real union with the Pelaxian Crown. However, new evidence that have emerged in 2014 would reveal that although there were plans being drafted that would change the status of the viceroyalty, these plans called for the integration of the viceroyalty into Pelaxia proper rather than granting independence for the viceroyalty.
Delepasian Kingdom and the end of Pelaxian rule
When the Pelaxian monarchy was toppled in 1852, much of the nobility have fled to the colonies which still pledged loyalty to the Girojón monarchy wherein they united the colonies into a monarchy serving as the pro-Girojón government-in-exile in opposition to the Pelaxian republic. However, tensions soon arose as three major factions were formed. There was the Royalists who hoped to overthrow the republican regime in Pelaxia with the help of the colonies and in return establish a dual monarchy in which the Delepasians would be of equal status to the Pelaxians. In opposition to the dual monarchy idea was the National Constitutionalists who, while they remained loyal to the crown, would rather that the kingdom drop the pretense of being a government-in-exile and instead become an independent Delepasian monarchy under the Girojóns. Lastly, there was the National Republicans who wanted nothing to do with the deposed Pelaxian monarchy nor with Pelaxia in general.
Because these three factions were unable to find a suitable compromise, the Delepasian Kingdom was racked with instability and chaos as the inland-coastal divide led to a few of the states within the kingdom to outright declare war on one another. Within three months, the kingdom was dissolved and each state was free to do as they please. Some of the same nobility who have came up with the dual monarchy idea in the first place decided to attempt to strong-arm the state governments into becoming monarchies with themselves as the monarch. These were only successful in Bahia and Rios Gemelos with the rest settling for various flavours of republican governance.
Within the next few months since the collapse of the three-month kingdom, the newly-independent polities would establish the Delepasian Confederation. A very loose "foralist confederation", the new government was organised in such a way that provided for a unique form of federalism wherein a given area was given distinct legal and fiscal independence. As a consequence, the confederal government was very weak and was only ever called upon in matters such as defence or major constitutional changes, with both requiring the unanimous support of all of the confederation's members before they could be pursued. There was only a uncameral legislature known as the Foral Assembly, led by the President of the Forals. The nominal chief executive was the Prefect, and the ceremonial head of state was the Emperor, who at the time was elected from amongst various Occidental royal houses, except for members of the House of Girojon as they were barred from holding the title due to, according to the Confederal Charter, their "lack of majesty".
The early decades of the new confederation were marked with relative stability and prosperity in spite of the chaotic socio-political situation which plagued the Delepasian Kingdom. This remarkable stabilisation had enabled Delepasia to become one of the main migratory hubs in Vallos, with many migrants coming from Yonderre. The influx of migrants would prove to be a bit troublesome for Delepasia due to fears of overpopulation, and so in an act of desperation, the confederation would assign Larianan captain Andrea Crocetti with the task of leading a voyage towards a new land for willing migrants. In truth, the Delepasian confederal government had very little idea on open oceanic navigation, and had mostly wanted to find a way to get rid of the migrants without turning them back all the while bringing in a foreign captain under empty promises. The simple fact that the voyage would wind up landing on Peratra, and eventually establishing what would become the state of Samalosi, came to be by happy accident, but to all who were involved in the voyage it was a pleasant surprise.
Estado Social era
After the end of the First Great War in 1902, the Delepasian economy had began to collapse after a series of major crop failures and sudden bank failures. The collapse came at a very bad time as more and more migrants, many of whom having had fled parts of the world that have become war-torn, would flock to Delepasia's shores. For some of the confederation's member states, the socio-political situation would deteriorate to the point of anarchy with Rosaria being one of the most adversely-affected states as presidents and prime ministers were almost always replaced within matters of months on average. The situation in Rosaria would get so bad that the Rosarian military would overthrow the republic in 1920 in a desperate attempt to restore a sense of stability. Among the new dictatorship's appointments was a noted university economics professor by the name of Fernando Pascual, who was given widespread authority as Rosaria's minister of finance. Through his financial know-how and veto power, Pascual was able to balance the budget of Rosaria and his methods were imitated across other failing Delepasian economies with equal success.
In recognition for ending the economic crisis, Pasqual was made Prime Minister of Rosaria in 1921 and then President of the Forals in 1922. With universal support across the confederation, Pascual was easily able to pass through sweeping reforms that would establish a provisional government designed to govern Delepasia pending the promulgation of a new constitution. This new constitution, the Delepasian constitution of 1924, greatly centralised the former confederation and served as the main governing document of Pascual's new regime. Christened as the Estado Social, Pascual organised his regime around his own ideals, that being of a state governed by the principles based upon a very close interpretation of Catholic social doctrine that would serve as a staunch defender of Delepasian culture from forces without and within; non-Delepasians were put into three categories which were immigrants, who were to be assimilated, semi-civilised, who were given limited rights, and the Loa, who were subject to the Loa Laws. It was an authoritarian conservative and corporatist Julian-based regime with Pascual serving as Prime Minister, the former military President of Rosaria Isidor de Santa Anna as chief executive, and the Delepasain Emperor remaining as a purely ceremonial head of state.
It was during the Estado Social when Delepasia would partake in the Second Great War when it began in 1934, and most especially within Volonia, of which Delepasia was already aiding its independence beforehand, but the advent of the war would result in more active and clandestine measures. One Delepasian of Larianic ancestry, G. C. Lorenzo, was quickly made the leader of the cause for Volonian independence and would go on to found the United Volonian Movement. In Samalosi, Delepasia would go on to occupy nearby Caphiric possessions which they would withdraw upon the Treaty of Kartika entering into effect in 1943.
After the war, Samalosi, owing to its long-held autonomy from Delepasia, would legalise gambling in 1949, marking the beginnings of Samalosi's casino empire. It was also during this time when Pascual decided to implement some token reforms that would slightly expand political liberties, even allowing for the formation of new opposition political parties, though only "approved" opposition parties would be allowed representation. Likewise, the regime would start to embark on some minor economic reforms, though nowhere near to the extent that Estado Social reformists would soon want in the 1970s. Pascual would soon suffer from a stroke in 1980 and was replaced by Nicolas Torres. A reformist aligned with the regime's technocrats, Torres would attempt to embark on some reforms such as economic liberalisation and even some elements of democracy. The reformist experiment was the regime's last hope for survival, however, as Torres was soon assassinated by an underling of commander-in-chief Francisco de Costa and was replaced by Alberto Bahamonde. The Velvet Revolution, which began in 1984, would soon usher in a decade of socio-political upheaval.
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution, despite its name, was a decade-long period that would see the transformation of Delepasia into Castadilla that started with a few popular uprisings which have emerged as a result of a massive public outcry against the assassination of Torres that would see the resignation of Bahamonde and de Costa in 1984. The subsequent elections held just a month later would see one of the left-leaning officials of the Estado Social, Hector del Cruces, becoming the new commander-in-chief while the prime ministerial seat would remain unoccupied during this time. Del Cruces was soon overthrown in a military coup led by conservative reformist and general Raul Quintero in 1985, with Quintero becoming the next commander-in-chief. The coup was followed up another uprising consisting of both liberal forces led by Ricardo Valentino and socialist radicals led by Vito Borbon who were able to overthrow Quintero in 1987 after the Imperial Delepasian Armed Forces had collapsed.
The Borbonists and Valentinists attempted to form a new provisional government only to collapse due to ideological disagreements after Borbon had demanded that the new government pursue socialist policies, which were greatly opposed by Valentino due to his staunchly anti-socialist stance. A few of Valentino's best generals, Fidel de la Pena, Augusto Ortega, and Hugo Castillo, would break off and join the Borbonists. Through the efforts of the Borbonists, Valentino's forces were eventually defeated in 1989 and Borbon would soon become Delepasia's commander-in-chief. The next few years would see further attempts by both liberals and Pascualists to remove Borbon from power, but to no avail. Upon Borbon's victory over the other factions, Delepasia would hold its first post-Estado Social elections in 1994, which was to determine who should succeed Borbon, who had pledged to step down once fighting had ceased, as commander-in chief. In an unexpected landslide, Emperor Maximilian was elected as commander-in-chief, which had finally put an end to the civil war phase of the Velvet Revolution.
Modern history
One of Maximilian's first actions was to appoint socialist general Antonio Hernandez as provisional prime minister for the new provisional government which consisted of socialists, Marxists, liberals, and christian democrats. The provisional government was designated so as to govern Delepasia until the Constituent Assembly election which was held in September, thus ending the Velvet Revolution. The Constituent Assembly would then govern Delepasia throughout 1995 and 1996 while the new constitution was drafted. Most of the provisions would ensure that the new constitutional government would be governed by socialist principles, with the nascent People's Democratic Party serving as the vanguard party, and it would finally abandon the name "Delepasia" in favour of "Castadilla". Other provisions would organise the new state as a federal semi-constitutional monarchy with Pelaxian, Latin, and Reform Tainean becoming the state's three official languages while systems of racial segregation were explicitly forbidden. This new constitution was approved by the Constituent Assembly as was slated to go into effect on the first day of the new constitutional government, that being 21 January 1997.
The 1996 elections resulted in a coalition government between the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Christian National Party (PNC) with Fernando Carvalho, leader of the PDP, becoming Prime Minister of the first civilian government since before the Velvet Revolution on 21 January 1997. In this capacity Carvalho had initiated the process of accession to the Vallosi Economic Association (VEA) by starting accession negotiations as early as February that same year.
After the transition to democracy, Castadilla quickly embraced tripartism and dirigism as the nation's primary economic policies, fostering in a mixed-market economy. Land reform and nationalisations were enforced; the constitution (approved in 1996) includes accommodations to socialist principles, complete with numerous references to socialism, the rights of workers, and the desirability of a socialist economy.
Diplomatically, Castadilla has pursued the thawing and eventual warming of relations with Caphiria as a means to further distance the nation from the Estado Social's warm relations with Urcea, though relations with the Urcean protectorate of Arona have remained warm and cordial nonetheless.
Geography
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View of Lake Astolia from an observation aircraft -
Base of a ceiba pentandra tree near the Old Astol River in Auxana -
Canopy walkway for seeing the diverse tropical rainforests of Rosaria -
View of the Sierra Guerrero mountain range from Rios Gemelos -
View of Santa Maria's Resort Area from Saints' Rest Beach -
View of Junu'urinia Ba'andasi-Navidadia's coast from Lake Remenau
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Castadilla is situated with the Tainean Sea to its east, with a small bit of coastline in the southeast nearing the Kindreds Sea, and is bordered by Takatta Loa, Vallejar, and the Caphiric exclave of Vespera, with maritime borders being shared with Cartadania's Porta Bianca, Puertego, Vallejar, and Vespera. The Niscamanta Range is located to the nation's west, enclosing both sides of the Remenau River Valley. The country's two largest lakes are Lake Remenau and Lake Astolia which are located in central Vallos.
| LR (Loru) | LD (Lade) | TL (Tilo) |
| NR (Nuru) | TDL (Tridesu) | GDN (Gedeno) |
| NM (Noma) |
The Castadillaan Bureau of Statistics and Censuses, in cooperation with the Castadillaan Environmental Agency, have classified the nation as having seven natural regions in 1998: Those being Los Rumas, Lago Delepas, Tierra Loa, New Rumas, Trillizos del Sur, Gemelos del Norte, and Norte Maritimo.
Gemelos del Norte is a tropical grassland much like Astol, and is surrounded by the Astol Mountain Range in the north and east, and the Old Astol River in the south. Trillizos del Sur is the largest geographical area in Castadilla, and is bordered by Old Astol in the north, and the Sierra Guerrero mountain range, which boasts the highest point in Castadilla, Mount Sebastian, at 3,623 metres (11,886.48 ft) above sea level.
A majority of Castadilla's population is concentrated within the regions of Los Rumas (where the nation's largest city of Adouka is located at), and Trillizos del Sur, mostly due to the two regions being among the largest in the country, and the existence of commercially-important rivers which ensures the economic livelihood of many of the states within them via trade with neighbouring countries.
Climate and environment
Castadilla's climate is broadly tropical throughout much of the year, though the existence of geographical nuances has allowed for a variety of biomes and climate zones to crop up. Trillizos del Sur and Gemelos del Norte, surrounded by the mountain ranges of Astol and Guerrero, have a more temperate climate in the interior before gradually transitioning towards an alpine climate as one gets closer to one of the mountain ranges, or towards a tropical rainforest climate as one gets closer to the river up north. Near the coast, the regions of Los Rumas and New Rumas have a warmer and more humid climate, often with tropical rainforests. Lago Delepas is a tropical savannah near Lake Remenau, but soon transitions towards temperate grassy plains as one gets closer to Junu'urinia Ba'andasi-Navidadia before transitioning towards a cooler climate in Tierra Loa.
Being just south of the equator and within one of the tropics, average temperatures remain mostly constant throughout the year, with average highs going up to 30 degrees Celsius, and average lows going down to 15 degrees Celsius. The big distinguishing feature between Castadilla's geographical areas is the amount of rainfall a given area gets rather than temperatures.
There is no such thing as a vernal or autumnal season in Castadilla; there is only a dry season, or cosecha (harvesting), and a wet season, or floración (flowering). Typhoons are most common in the wet season, bringing forth heavy amounts of precipitation of up to 350 mm; the dry season sees as little as 10 mm on average. Los Rumas and the interior of Trizillos del Sur and Gemelos del Norte each receive the highest amounts of rainfall on average.
Government and Politics
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Castadilla is a federal parliamentary semi-elective semi-constitutional monarchy governed under a dominant-party system by the People's Democratic Party (PDP) which adheres to the fundamental principles of Velvetine Socialism. Thus, Castadilla is one of the few countries that happens to be governed by an explicitly socialist party. The Castadillaan constitution states that the nation "is governed by the fundamental principles of socialism as determined by the Velvetines after their ultimate victory in 1994 after the Revolution in 1984; the defining feature of which is the role of the People's Democratic Party as the vanguard party designed to develop the conditions needed to properly transition the nation towards a post-capitalist society."
Executive
The executive branch is headed by the Emperor and the Prime Minister. The Emperor, currently Maximilian I, is the head of state, elected indirectly by a group of 41 electors who in turn are elected through complicated electoral machinery alternating between sortition and miniature internal elections.
There exists the title of Commander-in-Chief, which is designated by the constitution as the chief executive. In theory, this means that the Emperor is in fact a ceremonial head of state, but in practice the office of commander-in-chief and the head of state have been in the person of the Emperor ever since the Velvet Revolution, thus making him one of the most powerful figures in the nation.
The Prime Minister, currently Francisco Carvalho, is the head of government, appointed by the Commander-in-Chief to lead the magisterial council. The Emperor may dissolve the National Assembly or circumvent it by submitting referendums directly to the populace; the Emperor also has the power to appoint justices and other civil servants, is in charge of foreign affairs, as well as serving as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. The Prime Minister is in charge of domestic affairs in terms of public policy and providing oversight over the civil service. In the 2028 Commons elections, prime minister Carvalho, who first became Prime Minister in 1997 won another parliamentary majority.
Legislative
The legislature comprises of the bicameral National Assembly which in turn comprises of the Congress of the Peerage and Congress of the Commons.
The Congress of the Peerage is the upper house, consisting of 286 members split between the 266 Peers Temporal and the 20 Peers Spiritual. The former group is even split among the nineteen states of Castadilla, and are elected indirectly usually from amongst the nation's peerage by the regional upper houses through a party-list proportional representation voting system. The latter group is chosen from the amongst the nation's clergy on the basis of seniority. Unlike the Peers Temporal, the Peers Spiritual are an entirely ceremonial group with little power unlike their secular counterparts.
The Congress of the Commons is the lower house, consisting of 500 members split between the states on the basis of population in an attempt to prevent urban overrepresentation. The members, known as Representatives, are elected directly by the citizens through a party-list proportional representation voting system. Of the two legislative houses, this is the more powerful of the two. Indeed, the Prime Minister needs to command a majority of the Commons whether through partisan majority or coalitions in order to not have a minority government.
Federal subdivisions
Castadilla is a federal state with twenty estados, including the Federal District containing the nation's capital of Santa Maria. The primary purpose behind these entities is to be the primary-level divisions, complete with their own constitution and form of government. These entities are delegated some autonomy and self-governance, thus allowing them to pass their own laws and policies, provided that it doesn't violate the constitution. The states are further divided into provincias, parroquias, cantones, and municipios. These divisions are responsible for certain functions, but most notably not the educational functions due to the highly centralised nature of the education system. The comarcas serve as a common local government over multiple municipal collectivities. The apportionment of seats in the Congress of the Commons is divided between twenty electoral districts, each congruent to a state, as a means to prevent the National Assembly from being dominated by the larger cities in Bahia and Rosaria.
The government of Castadilla also provides maps of the extent of the nation's five main cultures as well as the nation's regions. Three states are Tainean, three states are Loa, two states are Cartadanian, one state is Samalosian, and twelve states are Delepasian. The state of Junu'urinia Ba'andasi-Navidadia is the only state to have two major cultures, those being Loa and Delepasian, and the state of Samalosi is the only state not to have a set cultural policy given its highly multicultural history even by the standards of Vallos; Samalosian is, however, its official culture. The largest state by area is Samalosi at 224,629.67 square kilometers (86,730 sq mi), while the Federal District is the smallest state by area at 1,234.78 square kilometers (476.75 sq mi). The most-populated state in Castadilla is Rosaria at 7,037,378 people, with New Isuria being the least-populated state at 578,175 people.
Six out of twenty states are constituent monarchies, those being Bahia, Rios Gemelos, Portas Gemeas, Samalosi, Kalanatoa, and Na'aturie; the latter two being theocracies, and Portas Gemeas and Samalosi are both examples of a more traditional elective monarchy. The rest of the states are republics. The states of Tescolinia, New Isuria, and Valio are also known as autonomous islands; islands on equal status to the rest of the states despite their small area.
Politics
The nation's dominant party is the left-wing People's Democratic Party which has had government since 1997 with Francisco Carvalho, who also has the honour of being the first Castadillaan prime minister of Cartadanian ancestry.
As Castadilla is still a parliamentary democracy rather than a one-party state, opposition parties are allowed to openly run in elections without fear of reprisal. The nation's largest opposition party is the centre-right Christian National Party, followed by the right-wing Democratic Reform Party, the centrist Castadillaan Citizens' Party, the environmentalist Ecological Renewal Party, the agrarian Democratic Farmers' Union, the regionalist Party of Peratran Interests, the far-left Yes We Can!, and the far-right Delepasian Alternative.
Law
The system of law used in Castadilla is the system of civil law, a legal system that has its basis in the Caphiric legal system. Under the civil legal system, laws are determined by written statutes and not judicial precedents; a judge may not have the authority to make law, but they do have the authority to merely interpret the law. The only instance in which judicial authority has been used to change the law is when a given law is interpreted as being in violation of the Constitution, and even then that kind of authority is exclusive to either the Supreme Court of Castadilla or any of the supreme courts of any of the nation's main subdivisions. In agreement with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which had emerged as a result of the Kilikas Enlightenment in the latter half of the 18th Century, freedom is the natural condition of society; any prohibitions to that natural condition can only be done in the name of keeping actions considered to be deleterious to society from destroying society altogether. Basically, the law can only establish prohibitions if it is needed, and said prohibitions must not cause inconveniences deemed to be greater than the societal inconveniences that a given law is trying to prohibit.
Castadillaan law has four major subdivisions, with those being: private civic law, criminal law, administrative law, and constitutional law. Private civic law encompasses non-criminal disputes such as contract law, family law, and property law; sentences under private civic law are typically monetary or compensatory in nature with punishments usually being minimal. Criminal law, as the name suggests, encompasses criminal disputes over matters such as thefts, assaults, and homicides; criminal sentencing can either be punitive or rehabilitative depending on the nature of the crime committed, the history of the accused, and the personal discretion of the judge presiding the case. Administrative law encompasses legal matters pertaining to the executive branch of government on both the national level and in the subnational level; administrative cases can usually mean instances of, for example, disputing fines levied due to a parking violation, but it can also mean determining the legal custody of a minor. Constitutional law, as the name suggests, exclusively encompasses not just the directly-codified provisions within the Constitution, but also documents that are considered to be highly important to the Constitution such as the Rights of Man; this typically arises over laws that are suspected, whether by an organization or a private citizen, of being unconstitutional.
All four realms of law have their own judicial hierarchies, but all of them end with the Supreme Court of Castadilla as the highest court in the country as well as being the highest that an appeal can go; all decisions made by the Supreme Court are considered final and unappealable.
Demographics
Like the rest of Vallos, Castadilla's demographics is highly diverse with multiple groups co-existing and intermingling relatively peacefully for the most part. Although this diversity was initially seen as a bad thing during the years when Delepasian exceptionalism was the main ideology for Castadilla's preceding government as part of the Estado Social period, the much more recent policy of multiculturalism and the dismantling of institutionalised racial laws has greatly encouraged diversity as part of Castadilla's history and heritage.
Ethnicity
Self-reported ethnicities in Castadilla (2028)
Castadilla's population is highly diverse, but research on Castadillaan ethnicity has felt the impact on nationalist discourses on identity. Ever since their independence from Pelaxia, the former Pelaxian colonies have all promoted the view that all Pelaxian-descended people in eastern Vallos are part of the Delepasian community, within which they were all considered indistinguishable from one another regardless of genealogy. Because of this, which was further spurred on by Delepasian exceptionalism, the Delepasian community is largely seen as a "melting pot" as multiple Occidental immigrants that have migrated to the Delepasian polities in the 19th Century, such as Yonderrans and Larianans, were noted to have largely assimilated to the point that many fusion cultures and languages were nearly driven to extinction.
The second-largest ethnic group is the Taineans, people who have descended from passengers of the Heaven Ships and have intermarried with the indigenous Vallosi people. In what is now Castadilla, the Taineans have enjoyed more rights than the Taineans of most other Vallosi nations. Indeed, Castadilla is one of the only two countries that actively preserves Tainean culture with the other being the Tainean-majority Arona.
In southwest Castadilla, the Loa people constitute as the predominant minority group. The Loa of Castadilla have fallen under Delepasian rule ever since the first settlements of Navidadia after the collapse of the Loa Empire. Historically, the Loa were actively discriminated by the Delepasians, most especially in Navididia from which the Navidadian System was first created in. It wasn't until after the Velvet Revolution in 1994 when the Loa were finally granted equal rights under the law.
Cartadanians in Castadilla have always been a presence ever since the establishment of the Pirate Republic of Portas Gemeas in 1498. As a fellow Romance culture, the Cartadanians were largely treated as near-equals by the Delepasians with the only demerit being that they spoke Cartadanian instead of Pelaxian.
Race relations between the Delepasians and the non-Delepasians would not start to slowly improve until after the Velvet Revolution. Even to this day, a worryingly high amount of Delepasians still hold exceptionalistic views with varying degrees of Delepasian supremacy.
Language
The Castadillaan vernacular of Pelaxian is the majority language in Castadilla, having been introduced to mainland Vallos with the arrival of Captain Mauricio José Delepas on Bahía de Los Ruma in the year 1497 with elements of Isurian. Reform Tainean, an Occidental-influenced standardisation of the Tainean langauge, is the language of the Taineans ever since it start being taught in northern Castadillaan schools in 1911. The native Tainean dialects are still spoken in increasingly smaller numbers in northern Castadilla, usually by older Taineans and isolated Tainean villages. Classical Latin has historically been used as a lingua franca by the Taineans when communicating with the Latinic peoples, the Bergendii, and the Delepasians. The Cartadanian language is almost exclusively spoken by the people of Portas Gêmeas and Trêscolinia as is Insuo Loa by the Loa people in Kalanatoa, Na'aturie, and Junu'úrinia Ba'andasi-Navidadía with Samalosian being primarily spoken in Samalosi. West Vallosi Pelaxian, Caphiric Latin, Burgoignesc, and various Occidental hybrid languages such as Bahiais are other known minority languages in Castadilla.
Religion
Religious affiliations in Castadilla (2028)
Catholicism is the predominant faith in Castadilla with nearly all of its practitoners being ethnic Delepasians or Cartadanians. The second-largest religion, predominant amongst the Taineans of Castadilla, is Mercantile Reform Protestantism, and thus is most common in the Tainean-majority states. Historically, this denomination has enjoyed greater tolerance in Delepasia mostly due to the Delepasian's hatred of the Loa. Marian Kapuhenasa, a syncretic faith combining elements of Loa Kapuhenasa with Delepasian Catholicism, is the third-largest religion, and is only practiced by the Loa people in Kalanatoa, Na'aturie, and Junu'urinia Ba'andasi-Navidadia. Assorted Christian denominations not specifically listed above and other religions are the two smallest religious groups in the country, mostly practiced by minority groups.
Education
Due to compulsory enrollment and the highly centralised nature of the Castadillaan education system, with a basic literacy rate of 99%. The state of Auxana is noted to have the lowest basic literacy rate across all states. In secondary education, approximately 93% of the population having graduated any of the four paths of secondary education. Tertiary education is typically at the very least partially-subsidised by the government which has allowed for a rather huge portion of secondary school graduates to attend many of the nation's post-secondary institutions; the percentage of citizens who have graduated a post-secondary institution is currently at 62% with the percentage going even lower as not all post-secondary graduates pursue additional degrees or doctorates. Only 23% of the population hold a post-graduate degree, and only 16% hold a doctorate.
Culture and Society
Education
State education in Castadilla is free, secular, and compulsory from the age of three until the age of sixteen. The current education system is regulated by the 1994 educational law, LOE (Ley Orgánica de Educación) or Fundamental Law for the Education, which permanently decoupled the Catholic Church from the public school system as well as establishing the school-leaving age at sixteen, something which was illegal under previous educational laws.
Castadillaan education is centralised and divided into three stages: Primary, secondary, and higher education. Government assessment has determined that school children perceive very low levels of support and feedback from their teachers, with many of them reporting great concern about the disciplinary climate and behaviour in classrooms.
Higher education is divided between public universities and the prestigious and selective Academias Coronadas, such as Ciencias Gu for political studies, ANR for economics, Politécnico, UMD for social studies, Escuela de Minería Santa María for high-profile engineers, or Academia Administrativa Burocrática for careers in the Gran Cuerpo of the state. The Academias Coronadas have come under criticism for their alleged elitism as many of Castadilla's high-ranking civil servants, CEOs, and politicians were graduates of these institutes of higher learning.
Kinship and family
Family structures for the Delepasians and Cartadanians largely revolve around the standard nuclear family structure that is usually found throughout the Occident, with a mother, a father, and multiple children who inherit their father's surname all within one single family unit. However, this form of family structure is not exclusive, and may even be nonexistent in certain parts of the country. For example, the Taineans practice a more matrilineal form of family structure as well as a system similar to the clan systems found in most Celtic countries. Most Tainean tribes are headed by a kasike, who serves as the chief of the tribe with the succession laws determining the kasike's heir being based on a matrilineal seniority. This means that a Tainean chiefly line of succession revolves around the oldest living female member of the tribe, thus if the matriarch dies then a new heir is chosen from the senior most descendant of the new matriarch. As such, the new chief of a Tainean tribe will not necessarily be a close relative of the previous chief.
Cuisine
Castadillaan cuisine is primarily a mixture of Vallosi, Pelaxian, and Yonderran cuisine, the result of centuries of cultural exchange between multiple cultures. Barbequed food, based upon an old Tainean culinary tradition, is greatly popular, with many regional variations throughout the country, and often with great regional rivalries emerging as a result over which regional form of barbeque is the best. Many Castadillaan pastries are primarily Yonderran contributions to the nation's cuisine, with the most well-known Castadillaan pastry being the Stella Santa which was created by a Yonderran chef in 1860 for Christmas before becoming a major hit and among the most ubiquitous Castadillaan foods. To the south, particularly in areas close to Takatta Loa, regional variants of the taco, itself a traditional Loa dish, reign supreme and often to the point that some people in the Occident have sometimes erroneously claimed that tacos are a traditional Castadillaan dish due to the nation's variants of the taco being some of the first forms of the taco to achieve international fame, much to the chagrin of the Loa government that campaigns have been launched to correct this common misconception.
Religion
Castadilla has been a secular state since 1996 with the promulgation of its constitution. As part of the government's efforts to attain assurances of non-intervention from the Catholic Church, the Concordat of 1996 was signed between the Church and the Council of the National Revolution which detailed the exact relationship between both entities. It superseded the Concordat of 1976, itself a reaffirmation of the Concordat of 1948, which had given the Catholic Church a wide array of privileges ranging from censorship of blasphemous materials to clerical exemption from military service while granting the prime minister, which at that time was Fernando Pascual, the privilege of appointing clerical figures; the Pope at the time of the enactment of the Concordat of 1948 issued an encyclical which celebrated the 450th anniversary of the arrival of Mauricio Delepas and the establishment of the Viceroyalty of Los Rumas. The Concordat of 1996, on the other hand, established the Catholic Church and the Castadillaan government as two separate and yet equal entities that may not interfere in the affairs of one another while at the same time reaffirming that the Church would still be represented in the Congress of the Peerage.
The concordat also established the twelve permil law in which Castadillaan taxpayers are obligated to devolve 12‰ (1.2%) from their tax returns to an organised religion that has been officially recognised by the state, or to a state-run social welfare programme. According to statistics from 2032, 64.8% of the population had made a choice from amongst the recognised religions. This tax law has had the unintended effect of funding minority congregations which would not have had such a boost in funding through regular donations from their adherents. As of 2035, the current religious denominations that the Castadillaan taxpayer may choose from are as follows:
- Latin Catholic Rite
- Caphiric Catholic Rite
- Coscivian Catholic Rite
- Mercantile Reform
- Marian Kapuhenasa
- Assemblist
- Collegiate
- Vallejarian
- Judaism
- Qustanti Islam
The only extant religion in Castadilla that has not requested recognition from the government is the Delepasian National Church which since the Velvet Revolution has refused to communicate with the government, believing that doing so would validate what they deem to be an anti-clerical socialist regime.
Sports
Association football is one of Castadilla's favourite pastimes, with the national team being a member team of the World Association Football Association, having competed in the WAFF World Cup multiple times. The nation's primary professional association football league is the UFR, which currently has thirty-two teams; twenty-seven Castadillaan teams and five Aronese teams. The UFR is organised into two main divisions: the Northern Division and the Southern Division, each with two additional divisions consisting of eight teams; a division consists of sixteen teams overall.
A UFR season has three main phases. The first phase is the preseason phase, which lasts from August until early September and is used for practice and to determine which players get to be on their team's UFR roster for the season with preseason games being usually held at a community stadium, but it is not entirely uncommon for a notable UFR team to play a preseason game on an international site. The regular season phase is the second phase in a UFR season; all teams play 90 regular season games with the amount played at home and the amount played while away being split evenly. Of the games played during the regular season phase, twenty-eight are played within a subdivision, twenty-six are played against teams within the other subdivision, and the remaining thirty-six are played against teams from the other division. The regular season lasts from September until March with a weeklong midseason break and a twelve-day long holiday during Christmas.
The final phase of a UFR season is the Zamora Cup Tournament wherein the top eight teams from each of the two divisions are chosen to compete in the annual elimination tournament. The tournament is divided into four rounds, with the first round consisting of four games for each division, the second consisting of two games for each division, and the third round serving as the semi-final with each division having only one game for the third round. The winners of the semi-finals will go on to play in the final which is the only round in the tournament in which both teams are from different divisions. The winner of the final wins the Zamora Cup and becomes that year's champion.
UFR games are almost always held in Castadilla, save for home and away games that are held in Arona. The only season in which the games were almost entirely held outside of Castadilla was the 1994-1995 season due to the fallout of the Velvet Revolution and the subsequent Democratic Salvation Period.
Smaller professional association football leagues exist in Castadilla, and are known as junior unions; junior unions are more regionalised than the UFR and usually have their own trophies.
Economy and Infrastructure
The economy of Castadilla is a mixed economy with elements of tripartism and dirigism under the name Velvetine Socialism. In laymen's terms this means that the Castadillaan economy makes heavy used of economic planning with market forces in the name of guiding production in an economy, this also includes the existence of public and private enterprise. Firms in Castadilla are under public ownership and are attached to certain state ministries that may opt to merge, dissolve, and reorganise these firms while determining which sector a firm may operate in. The acquisition of inputs and the selling of outputs are to be done in markets, ultimately meaning that the nation's economy is one of markets, making it very much unlike certain forms of socialist-style planned economies.
The basic idea behind Velvetine Socialism, named after the Velvet Revolution, is based around the idea of earlier forms of social democracy, that being a workers' revolution can be achieved through reformist measures, with armed revolts being an absolute last resort. That last resort being the Velvet Revolution of 1984, and that the victory of the left-wing reformists during the ten-year civil war period that had defined the Revolution as well as the electoral victory of the People's Democratic Party in the nation's first truly democratic elections has given the idea of a workers' revolution by reform a mandate. Through the heavy use of state planning and intervention in a market economy while still ensuring the rights and dignity of the worker is maintained, socialism will be achieved.
As a result, the government of Castadilla exerts a strong directive influence through the use of indicative planning to supplement market forces for guiding the economy. Enterprises such as mass public transportation, energy, and the basic infrastructure for telecommunications are under state control, and private corporations are given various incentives from the state to merge or engage in certain projects as needed.
Industries and Sectors
Castadilla's main sectors can be divided into two areas: the privately-owned sectors, and the publicly-owned sectors. The major publicly-owned sectors are typically services that serve the population in general such as healthcare, electricity, and mass public transportation. For these sectors, the constitution explicitly forbids domestic private firms from directly conducting business in these sectors. The privately-owned sectors are different in that although the government may directly conduct business in these sectors, domestic private firms may also directly conduct business in them. The three largest privately-owned sectors of the Castadillaan economy are in telecommunications, shipping, and retail. By allowing private firms to directly conduct business in certain sectors that do not have the ability to potentially exploit the people, the Castadillaan government has aimed to ensure a growing semi-market economy while at the same guaranteeing what the constitution deems to be "key human rights". Although the constitution forbids foreign businesses to conduct any kind of business in the country, they are permitted to conduct business in the special economic zones in Portas Gemeas and Santa Maria. Furthermore, there exists a loophole that allows for businesses to conduct business outside of the special economic zones if they establish their regional headquarters in any of the special economic zones; this is known as the headquarters loophole, and quite a few major businesses throughout the Occident have taken advantage of it.
Currency
The official currency of Castadilla is the Peseta, first introduced in 1852 to replace the overly-complicated Rumian real with an easy-to-use decimal currency. It is the original Peseta, with Vallejar adopting their own form of the Peseta sometime after the original Peseta's introduction. The current exchange rates are as follows: ₽29.11 for $1 USD; ₽51.99 for $1 URD; ₽56.76 for ₮1 LUT; ₽57.33 for ₳1 ICA; ₽53.55 for ◊1 KFS; ₽52.95 for ₹1 RLS; ₽15.15 for ฿1 BAR; ₽39.21 for £1 ARP; ₽27.50 for ₱1 TDP; ₽1.75 for Ps1; ₽20.33 for $1 AST; ₽7.48 for ₺1 LIR; ₽3.51 for ₴1 KBS.
Historically, the Peseta was one of the weakest currencies in Vallos, the result of decades of economic and political turmoil that arose after the collapse of the Delepasian Kingdom in 1852. It would not be until the beginning of Fernando Pascual's involvement in the Rosarian government that measures would be taken to undo the damages caused by eighty years of economic mismanagement and bankruptcies. Through his near-absolute control of economic policies, Pascual was able to strengthen the Peseta for the first time in many years, leading to the neighbouring Delepasian polities to make use of similar economic policies to those of Pascual's to similar results. However, it would not be until the 2000s that the Peseta became one of the strongest domestic (read: not using a foreign-based currency such as the Levantine Taler or the mainland Sarpedonic Real) currencies in Vallos.
Prior to 1924, the Peseta was decentralised, with each Delepasian polity having their own variant of the Peseta. These pesetas were collectively abolished in favour of the new Delepasian Peseta, which itself was the successor to the Rosarian Peseta. The Peseta is not to be confused for the Ponča, the official currency of Tierrador, nor the similarly-named Vallejarian Peseta.
Healthcare
The Castadillaan healthcare system greatly emphasises the right to the universal access to healthcare and as such the government holds a monopoly on healthcare funding which it gets through income taxes, making it a form of single-payer universal healthcare. In practice, this means that access to any healthcare institution in Castadilla, which is always a government-owned facility as domestic private healthcare has been declared forbidden by the constitution as part of the country's commitment to socialism and the eventual transition to communism in the future, is guaranteed at no further cost to the patient. With a consistently growing economy since the early 21st Century, the Castadillaan healthcare system has generally improved over time with it eventually becoming one of the best systems in Vallos in the 2020s. Healthcare funding in Castadilla comprises about fifteen per cent of the country's GDP, which is over $7,016 per capita, making it among the most-funded healthcare systems in the subcontinent.
Energy
Castadilla is a major producer of nuclear energy, it having been national policy since the 1950s when the Delepasian Commonwealth began to pursue energy security. As noted in the constitution, the energy sector is one of the three major sectors of the economy under complete government ownership with no exemptions for private firms. The heavy investment into nuclear power had allowed for the nation to have one of the highest amounts of operational nuclear power plants, at over fifty. Presently, the percentage of energy generated through nuclear power in Castadilla is 84%; wind energy is common along the shores of the nation and makes up about 8% of the energy generated in the country. Solar energy is usually prevalent amongst more remote areas of the country and citizens who live off-the-grid, making up 8% as well.
These stats seem to suggest that there is no energy in Castadilla that has been generated through fossil fuels, the last of the power plants in Castadilla that made use of fossil fuels was shut down permanently in 2017 as part of the government's commitment to ending reliance on fossil fuels. The end of fossil fuel reliance for the energy sector has been seen as a source a pride throughout the country, ensuring that even a hypothetical oil crisis will not turn into a potential energy shortage. Brownouts and blackouts are recorded to be a rarity save for times of maintenance.
Wind turbines are at their most numerous within the Porto Taino Wind Farm, a wind farm located off the coast of northern Porta Gemeas that was constructed in 2006 and was fully operational by 2010. The rest of the wind turbines are located off the coast of Homberia as part of the New Rumas Wind Farm, itself having been constructed in 2014 and was fully operational by 2016. All wind farms are connected to an on-shore "battery unit", a building that stores the energy generated by the wind farms for use on the power grids of the autonomous islands. Solar power has found its greatest use in the state of Auxana, which has had a long history of opposing nuclear power.
Military
The Imperial Armed Forces serve as the military and paramilitary forces in Castadilla, with the Emperor serving as the Commander-in-chief. The commander-in-chief also serves as the chief executive, making Castadilla one of the few nations in which the head of the armed forces is explicitly stated to be the head of the executive branch without being the head of state. The armed forces consists of the Imperial Castadillaan Army as the land force, the Imperial Castadillaan Navy as the naval force, the Imperial Castadillaan Air Force as the air force, and the Imperial Castadillaan Gendarmerie as both the military police force and the rural civilian police force. The armed forces has abolished conscription since 1995, and there exists a reservist force known as the Imperial Castadillaan Reserves for citizens who are regularly-trained and yet have opted not to serve in the armed forces unless needed for mobilisation.
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