Kurikonai

Kurikonai's modern flag, first used in 19XX. It symbolises the sun setting on the old Kurikonjin Empire.

### Year of creation

Current constitution enacted in 1981 CE; Kurikonai first unified in 607 CE

### Creator

Nyxana

**Kurikonai** (Japanese: クリコナイ, *Kurikonai*) is a country which occupies a chain of islands to the east of Sairana. It shares no land borders with other nations, and its capital city is Toushina. It is comprised of 6 main islands: Kōrinoshima, Yamashu, Hikone, Sazanhōn, Kazenoshū, and Zenkushima; in addition to hundreds of smaller islands. The official national language of Kurikonai is Japanese, which is spoken near-uniformly throughout the country.

Since 1981 Kurikonai has been a constitutional monarchy, with a Prime Minister and Parliament alongside the Emperor. The country is quite varied in terrain, but its location near an active fault line means that it is highly geologically active; it is rated one of the countries at highest risk of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

It shares maritime borders with Valira to the north and northwest, the CSU to the west, [country] to the southwest, and Sutāshima to the south.

## History

### Antiquity (pre-607 CE)

Kurikonai was first settled by Narasunjin (Proto-Japanese) seafarers from mainland Sainara at around 200-300 BCE. They displaced the indigenous peoples of the islands, gradually integrating and assimilating them until by around 100 CE the majority of the islands' inhabitants were Narasunjin.

It was at this point that the people of these islands began to call themselves "Kurikonjin", and the islands themselves "Kurikonai". By this time Kurikonjin explorers were beginning to sail south, past modern-day Uxtamar and [Valkyrie's Continent], and towards the islands around Marangara, with the first recorded landfalls of Kurikonjin sailors occurring in 532 CE.

### Second Toushina Empire, Interregnum, and Modern Kurikonai (1856 CE - present)

In 1898, with international tensions over Kurikonai's foreign policy threatening to lead to war, the Emperor signed the Marangaran Colonial Concordance granting the island(s) its/their independence, as an attempt to prove that Kurikonai had no ill intentions towards its neighbours. This worked, for a time, but...

At the end of , the Emperor Hōreki, vowed to make Kurikonai "Fight on until we are victorious, no matter the cost!". Upon hearing of this, a coup was plotted by a group of war-weary military leaders, who eventually garnered the support of many of the Kurikonjin High Command. Their coup was executed peacefully, with the Imperial Guard laying down their arms against orders, and <> was forced into exile to be replaced by a newly formed "Government of National Renaissance", formed of an array of civil servants and military leaders tired of increasingly hopeless warfare, and determined to reach a peaceful settlement.

This government soon reached an armistice with [combatants] whereby Kurikonai would relinquish occupied territories outside of Kurikonai-proper, as well as other concessions. While some were distraught of this, most were simply relieved to finally be at peace again, as the country had suffered badly due to a pair of major earthquakes in 1930, and the damage had yet to be repaired.

In [year] the Government of National Renaissance dissolved itself, having enacted the new Kurikonjin constitution, as well as symbolically adopting a new flag to mark the beginning of a new era, and the end of an old one. The next few years were a period of economic recovery, driven by the rise of Kurikonjin advanced technology firms such as <>, KVC, and Maxwell.

In 1981 Prince Koretoki, the eldest son of the deposed Emperor Hōreki, was acclaimed Emperor by the Prime Minister, Sotatsu Hattori, following the Petition of Restoration. As Emperor, he would adopt the era name of "Shōtoku" ("Righteous Virtue").

In the 1982 the bursting of a speculative bubble, coupled with a major earthquake, caused a major economic recession. It took until 1999 for Kurikonai to reach pre-recession levels of economic growth again.

## Government & Politics

Kurikonai's government is unusual because while it claims to be "non-presidential", the Prime Minister takes a role that is in-effect identical to that of a president; entirely seperate elections are held for parliamentary seats and for Prime Ministerial candidacy, which has resulted in Prime Ministers sometimes being from an opposition party to that controlling the Chamber of Representitives; Kurikonai's House of Commons analogue. The current Prime Minister is *Settan Kitani*, whose 5-year term will come to an end in 2022, but while he is allowed to stand for re-election within the 2-term limit due to this being his first term, he has stated he has no intention of doing so.

This form of governance was instituted in [END OF WWII ANALOGUE], following a military coup at the end of [WWII ANALOGUE] against the last Kurikonjin Emperor. In spite of, or perhaps because of this, the idea of re-instituting a constitutional monarchy is a perenially popular idea, albeit one with a fairly low priority among the electorate.

## Demographics

About 95% of the 86,718,000-strong Kurikonjin population are of majority-Narasunjin ethnicity, and historically there have been very few minority populations within the islands. The remnants of the original indigenous population of the islands, which were settled by Japanese peoples in around 200-300 BCE, comprise about 4% of the overall population; as a result of Japanese-speakers' long-term hegemony over the islands and cultural assimilation as a result of this, the indigenous minority also speak Japanese, which is the sole official language of the islands.

Kurikonai's 15 largest cities are, in order of population, Ennai, Toushina, Fujihama, Matsukami, Shirayama, Kamisumaki, Randaka, Kumasaki, Uratari, Uicheon, Kurishiri, Kentama, Aridarano, Shintorano, and Kuhae. Approximately 75% of the Kurikonjin population lives within these 15 cities, with another 5% in the next 10 largest. This is a result of the topography of Kurikonai's islands favouring urbanisation; much of the land outside the cities is either mountainous, or taken up by agriculture as a necessity to feed the urban nation.

### Languages

97.7% of Kurikonai's population considers Japanese their primary language, and it's the sole official national language of the islands. No other languages have an indigenous presence large enough to be recognised as "national minority languages" in the islands; however Okinawan is recognised as a minority language in Zenkushima, and Kunigami and Amami are recognised as minority languages in Kazenoshū, with Amami being the most spoken language of the archipelago centred around the city of Kuhae.

## Culture

Engineering, and by extension the automotive industry, is an area in which Kurikonai excels, thanks to a strong motorsport tradition and a high quality of technical education in schools and universities. This precision arises in part due to the high risk of natural disasters such as earthquakes, typhoons, or volcanic eruptions, as Kurikonai is sited in an extremely unstable region seismologically, thanks to subduction of the oceanic plate to its east. This necessitates the acceptance of nothing less than the highest standard of precision in civil engineering and architecture; an attitude which has bled into many other areas of Kurikonjin technology, engineering, and culture.