Part of the government series of articles.
Read more: Land Sovereign
A sovereign area is a division of land in the Commonwealth. Land in the country is sovereign, and so its status is determined by how it is held. As a result, there are many kinds of divisions with different legal and political features.
Land in the Commonwealth is held through three claims – those of the public, the steward, and the land sovereign. The public’s claim is put by a government, and which government puts it decides the kind of area. In a municipality it is the municipal assembly, in a province the republic and in a territory the Commonwealth. The Steward may be residents, an institution or nobody, and the Land’s claim may be ordinary, reserved or complete.
Many of the names are older than the Commonwealth. Most republics acceded as part of the British Atlantic Territories, and the Commonwealth kept the colonial vocabulary of agencies, residencies and protectorates for kinds of land it already had. The names were given new meanings under the constitution, and none of them describes colonial rule.
Federal and republican #
- Commonwealth – the federal state, comprising 83 republics and the areas held by the federal government.
- Regions (also constituent commonwealths) – groupings of republics with their own assemblies and devolved ministries. They coordinate the republics in them and hold no land of their own.
- Republics (also constituent republics) – the basic sovereign unit of the Commonwealth. Each writes its own laws under the constitution, keeps its own lower courts and sends one delegate to the Mandatory Ecclesia. Every other kind of area lies inside a republic, except territories and Crown Land.
Incorporated areas #
Incorporated areas hold a charter from their republic. Their borders are drawn along walls, berms, rivers, forests or canals, and the Public’s claim is put by their own assembly.
- Metropolises – a city and its suburbs governed as one area, mostly in Oslola.
- Departments – the neighbourhoods of a metropolis, each with its own borders, population and local services.
- Municipalities – towns and villages, and the basic unit of municipalism. There are about 3,400 of them.
Republican areas #
These are unincorporated areas in which the republic puts the Public’s claim.
- Provinces – the country between settlements: farmland, outposts and stations run by the republican government. Provincial residents have no obligation to work. Most of the land area of the Commonwealth is provincial.
- Dependencies – areas a republic holds away from its main island, with no settled population. Most are rocks, cays and outlying islands. Gough Island, 320km from Santes with only a weather station on it, is a dependency of Santes. They are most numerous in Lucaya and the Antarctic.
- Protectorates – small settled islands that govern themselves through an island council but are too small to incorporate. The nearest republic holds them under its protection and carries their services and their seat in its assembly. Most are out-islands in Lucaya and the Grenadines.
- Internal legations – areas one republic holds inside another sovereign area, under its own law. Every republic keeps a legation at Comet for its delegate to the Mandatory Ecclesia, and most keep one in the seat of their region.
Federal areas #
In these areas the Commonwealth puts the Public’s claim, usually through the ministry that holds the land.
- Territories – areas outside any republic, run by a federal administrator. They include the Antarctic Territories, the Lunar Community and the Meteor Federal Territory around Comet. The International Arctic Territories are a trust territory held jointly with the United States, and are not a sovereign area of the Commonwealth.
- Mandates – areas the Commonwealth holds on behalf of a republic, under a mandate of the Mandatory Ecclesia. Mandates are typically found in republics still undergoing federalisation, like Java and Annobon. The Guinea Federalisation Interwork Detachment holds the land under a mandate while the new republic is built. A municipality whose charter is suspended, or a town abandoned after a natural disaster, may also be held as a mandate until it is returned under the terms of the mandate.
- Agencies – areas given over to a single federal works and the people who run it, under an agent of the bureau that holds it. The agent has the civil powers of a municipality for anyone living there. The World Astroport on Ascension is an agency of the Bureau of Space, and the desalination works at Mora on Colombier is an agency of the Ministry of Light and Water. Most republics have at least one, usually a power station or a reservoir.
- Cantonments – military areas under a commandant, including the families who live on them. The Fortress home bases of the ten divisions and the garrisons of the Territorial Service are cantonments, as are the Central Military Precinct at Karu and the air base outside Adara on Ascension.
- Intendancies – working areas of land and water with no settled steward, such as forests, upland pasture and fishing grounds. An intendant of the Ministry of Landscape allots them by season to the farms and crews that work them, and their royalties go to the Public. Intendancies cover most of the Commonwealth’s waters, and the largest on land are in the Arctic and the Antarctic.
- Factories – trading posts where foreign merchants live and trade in money under a factor of the Bureau of the Frontier. The domestic economy has no money, so foreign trade that is not conducted by the state is conducted in a factory. There is one at most large ports, and the largest is the Dohyo Free Port in Oslola. The second largest is the Blacktown Factory in the Caimanas, which is held under charter by the Blacktown Exchange Company.
Residencies #
- Residencies – areas that comprise communities governed by their own customary authority rather than by a charter, with a federal Resident who advises them and carries their business to the republic and the Commonwealth. The Kalina Territory on the east coast of Kabuli is a residency.
Areas of the Land #
In these areas the claim of the land sovereign outweighs the others.
- Reservations – areas reserved for the Land by the Bureau of Reserves & Sanctuaries or by a court of the sovereign. Development is limited or forbidden while the reservation stands, though the other claims are not extinguished. National parks are reservations kept open to visitors, and sanctuaries are closed to them. A reservation becomes Crown Land if a court finds the Land’s claim complete.
- Crown Land (Kronaismioudelfia) – areas where the Land’s claim is complete and has been struck from state sovereignty. They are not settled or developed. Most of the island of Meteor is Crown Land.