Zau

The Kingdom of the Zau is a micronation founded in 1978, located in the Azuero Peninsula, in Panama. It's capital is Spinel.

## Etymology

There are some mixed etymologies about the origin of the name "Zau". Some people specificate that it was coined from the Romanian word "Zau", which meant "or". The fillbusters that lived there described the meaning of the name as the native name of the former city of Sais, in Egypt, which is Zau. The rebels described that the name was the initials of the concentration camps of the Zaurian Royal Army in the 1960's, called "Zona de Altos Usos", which were "ZAU". The Indonesian people native to the nation stated that the name was from one god that ruled the earth, which had the name of "Saus", from an unknown religion called "Kengak", which is a mixture of buddhist and popular beliefs.

## History

In 1887, the Colombian montuno people that lived in the hill areas of the Azuero peninsula found Indonesian people that were refugees due to the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, which was heard from around the earth. The people from La Villa then started to murmur about those people, and thus, having investigations about it.

Soon after, the remaining fillbusters that worked in the Central American Republic were trying to move themselves that a land that is not the United States, but in secret. It's last resort was in the Mensabe river, which they started to plant bananas and pawpaws in the middle of the basin. The number of fillbusters were 300 exactly.

But the English population in the Province of Azuero went overloading in the 1900's when a British ship, called the Royal Pennant, on it's route to Los Angeles, had sunk by an accident in the construction of the Panama Canal. An estimated 2000 people were in the ship, and after this, they began to swim back to an unknown forest, which was actually the beaches of the former city of Pocrí. It is estimated that some of them were descendant from the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The estimated 240 Turkish people that lived outside the Ottoman Empire were suddenly found in the streets of New York, so they decided to bring them back home. The problem is that they did not know where they went, and they unpurposefully landed on an empty land (which was, according to the Panamanian books, the city of Isla de Cañas). The Ottoman governors, at the next day, noticed that their boats had been stolen by creole people to navigate to Darien.

The 20 Finnish people, who worked in the construction of the Canal, were suddenly moved to a city which was called "Los Pozos", and since then, planted flowers and even made a butterfly sanctuary in the 1910's.

In 1923, The Panamanian government, led by Juan Demóstenes Arosemena, along with the mayors of the cities of Azuero, saw the massive flux of inmigration in the southern areas of the nation between the Turkish, the English and the Javanese people. They had been building slums all over the mountains, especially the Cerro Hoya (now known as the Angliana Mountain), and that led to an nationality crisis, mostly because those people were too afraid to even speak another language like Spanish.

In 1942, the first teaching of the Zaurian language has been held in a former ghost house in Azuero, which led to the Zaurian independence movement to spread through the wide Isthmus,.

For years, the nation of Panama had been lived unequally, until in 1959, a man native from the town of Rio Grande, Saúl Mendez de Neiva, had been matching a congress between the four races that invaded the southern area of Panama in the city of Guararé, at the Matias house. An estimated 40,000 people had been assisting the event, and it concluded with a mass, froth in English, Turkish, Indonesian and Dutch.

That led to the government of Zau, which already took areas of the province of Coclé, to annex the sovereign nations of the Republic of Falcon Bay, the kingdom of Ucezigi, the Indonesian government in exile which had no name yet, and the former palenque of Metrevit, which spoke an isolated language (which is now known as Bin Putol) as protectorates since their independence.

Saul Mendez had been allied with the sons of Victoriano Lorenzo and some other Indian people who lived in the hills of what has been the northern panhandle of the Province of Cocle, to form a new country. It was supposed to be a republic first, but some of the Indians were thinking that democracy is another way of oppresing the minor race, so they made it into a Kingdom. Saul has been proclaimed King of the new Empire, and in 1960, at the chapel of the city of Los Angeles, in the province of Azuero, 20,000 people coming from the four races were celebrating the proclamation of the Kingdom. It's name was Zau, and everyone cheered.

The Zaurian Army has been established in 1961. As soon as the Panamanian people saw this, they claimed the Royal army as a terrorist organization, although the main purpose of it was the proclamation of a new republic in the Isthmus, with a complete monarchy ruling over all.

Although the first sight of Zaurian revolts was in the early 60's by a group of Turkish people who were protesting in the city of Chitré, the first official war started by the Zaurian Army was Operation Zicuda (which is Mosquito in Zaurian), in 1963, which took place in the bay of Punta Chame. Since then, many events happened, which were the reason why the Zaurian War of Independence started in 1965.

TBA

Whilst the Panamanian army led by Noriega was retreating with only 10 of its soldiers left, the nation of Zau has been declared independent during a successful congress in the city of Pocri (now Rainwater) in 1978 after half a decade of war, and the anthem was sung for the first time, in the English and Spanish languages.

Zau successfully annexed the Republic of Komari in 1979, after the Treaty of Yukozawa.

A entity called the Zaurian Empire has been formed 15 months after the independence of the nation, to expand their territories to poor lands in the nation, like the Floridian panhandle, the southern part of Honduras, the coast of Jiquilisco, the coasts of Southern Morocco, and a part of the Antarctic lands.

Zau was one of the main micronation allies of the United States in the Operation Just Cause, in the Panama City, along with nations like Corpan, New America and New Islandia. They all battled each other using suits that resemble their flags, but as cadets from the United States.

## Geography

Zau's geography is very mixed. In the northern part of the country, the forests are humid and rains occur normally. On the southern side, nearly any cloud is seen on half a year, and the Portsmore desert, is one national park of the country. It's highest peak, the Angliana mountain, has been home to many birds.

## Culture

Zau's national languages are: English, Spanish, Turkish, Japanese, Finnish, Indonesian, Zaurian, and Bin Putol. It's one of the few microcountries where common English accent is not spoken, it's English is used as a creole language, even in serious situations.

Zau's national sport is cycling, although by audience, football and field hockey take the spot.

August is often considered as the national month of Zau, since most of it's feasts are celebrated every August, and the majority of them are of Fillbuster descent. The Kingdom Day, however, is celebrated in the 3rd of May.

Zau's most consumed fast food chain is the japanese Lotteria, which had been entering a boom in the 2000''s, and had already surpassed the number of restaurants the chains McDonalds and Pato Frito had. Most of it's

## Economy

Zau's national currency is the jarl (which is the Norse meaning of earl), which is also referred as a switch. There are many adaptations of the currency based on their languages, one example is the zetto (used in Komari), the valtias (used in the Finnish-speaking areas) and the cedulita (used in Spanish-speaking areas)

Zau's GDP per capita is $6,583,573.

## Provinces

Zau is composed into 24 provinces.

* Brendana
* Cacharro
* Capital Territory
* Chancho Islands
* Covadonga
* Ejemplar
* Falcon's Bay
* Gerald
* Gran Pasto
* La Huella
* Lowell
* Marigold
* Metrevit
* Nueva España
* Pojoista
* Ramfire
* Republic of Komari
* Roble Paz
* Rocios
* Tinsbuck
* Ucezigi
* Virreino
* Welcome
* Wijaya

## Symbols

Zau's flag was confected by Joitus Kallonen and Erico Vargas del Ávila in 2001, as the new flag for the nation. The Zau People's Recission Party, which is the national ruling party of the nation, approved the idea, and stopped using the former flag, which is a bicolored bend of blue and orange with a star in the middle-left,created by Eustaquio Vallés in the 1950's as a symbol of Zaurian nationalism, to replace it with a diagonal rendition of the flag.

The symbol of Zau has been confected in the early 1970's by Fuella Stigma, a Spanish-descent Zaurian-speaking woman which made abstract art. It was then approved in 1978, the date of Zau's independence.

Zau has two anthem, one which is used in regular events, which is the Himno Nacional Zaureño, and one which is used in royal events, which is the Tantum Ergo.. Both anthems are played during the end of transmissions of the national radio and television stations, each one in their official language.