NATION APPLICATION

Shortform name: Nambo
Real life culture influence: Various Korean, Chinese, Japanese settlers; Mapuche
Real life culture of former colonizer: Korean (Jeongmi)
Population: 45,334,300
GDP (PPP) per capita: $54,758
GDP (nominal) per capita: $49,472
Military manpower (active/reserve): 74,000/35,000
Language(s): Korean
Nation description: TL;DR: If you threw Argentina, Australia, Chile, and South Africa into a blender

The southern cone of Cheongju was inhabited since approximately 25,000 years ago by indigenous Namboans. At first Sinjuan contact, Remapese (Mapuche) people controlled the vast majority of the center, west, and south of the country, having expanded rapidly in the preceding centuries. The Qichwa empire extended into the mountains of northwestern Nambo. Other hunting-and-gathering groups, including the Toba/Qom, Moqoit, Rankülche, Pehuenche, and Gününa-küna, inhabited the wet northeastern coast, with Tehuelche people in the south. However, these groups were largely eliminated due to simultaneous pressure from the Remapese and Sinjuan settlers over the course of the 17th-19th centuries.

The first known landing in Nambo by Sinjuans was in 1610 when a Ziemgokan exploration vessel, sailing off course, was shipwrecked at Yangdudo (羊頭島) off of the northwestern coast. In 1617, a Jihwan explorer sailed down the east coast of Cheongju, reaching the northwestern edge of Nambo. Subsequent Sinjuan expeditions charted the southern extent of the continent and engaged in brief trading interactions with indigenous people, though no permanent settlements were estabished. In 1721, a ship chartered by the Mincangan South Sea Company (岷昶南海公司) conducted an expedition along the eastern coast in search of a suitable location for settlement, aiming to establish a permanent trading station and agricultural settlement that would secondarily help relieve overcrowding in the cities of northern Mincang through migration of poor laborers. Two years later, a small fleet carrying a contingent of Mincangan Company soldiers and a group of civilian settlers landed south of Achao to establish a colony at Saman (沙灣). A Fusenese voyage passed through the Chehou Islands and landed on the southwestern coast in Swifthawk Bay in 1746, erroneously believing to have newly discovered that coastline and therefore claiming it for Fusen.

The early years of the Mincangan colony were harsh, but subsequent arrivals in 1725 and 1728 gradually stabilized the settlement. A second settlement at Buheungbin (復興浜) in 1730 decreased isolation. The colony gradually developed agricultural self-sufficiency and began to engage in sealing, fishing, and whaling, as well as further exploration along the coast and into the interior. Ex-Company soldiers and suppliers, as well as small numbers of slaves, primarily from northern Cheongju, further increased the population. Conflict with the local indigenous population was intermittent as additional towns and, eventually, two additional colonies were established.

After 66 years of neglect and virtual sovereignty, with the decline of the Mincangan Company's power and finances, an increasingly-powerful Jeongmi took an interest in establishing control over the Nambo territories to keep them from falling into rivals' hands. In 1787, a Jeongmian fleet arrived at Saman and claimed authority over the colony with little resistance. The following year, a shipment of convicts from Jeongmi was sent to western Nambo to establish a penal colony and thwart potential Fusenese or Meisaani settlement in that region. The founding in 1785 of the Jeongmian South-East Nambo Colonization Company led to the planned formation of an additional colony in southern Nambo that would serve as a new model Sinjuan society in the Southern Hemisphere and attract capitalist investment. Settlers were primarily recruited from Jeongmi and promised land grants either for purchase or after a period of indentured service, with their passage to Nambo paid for by the government. Roads were opened into the fertile plains of the northeastern interior, which by the 1810s resulted in the division of the area into agricultural lots and massive eradication of the local indigenous people. To the south, in the steppe, the Jeongmian colonies rapidly expanded with the establishment of sheep and cattle ranches, despite the attempts of the colonial government to limit expansion and avoid conflict with the Remapese. The western colony also grew, with continuing convict shipments and eventually a rise in the emancipated population, which developed small-scale farming and a pastoral industry despite the poor soil and dry climate. Two further colonies were established by Jeongmi in 1803 and 1811, both with the help of convicts.

Frontier conflict with the Remapese intensified in the 1830s. The northwest, far south, and central interior were designated off-limits to settlement and reserved for Remapese people, who fiercely fought back any incursions into their territory and frequently caused the abandonment of newly established pastoral stations. However, local governments and informal colonist paramilitaries continued to frequently launch punitive raids against the indigenous population, with notable massacres in 1838, 1845, and 1861. Sinjuan explorers, seeking both new agricultural lands and scientific discoveries, first crossed the territory of Nambo from ocean to ocean in 1844. A trans-Nambo telegraph line was completed in 1866.

Free landed settlers increasingly agitated for representative government, beginning during the factionalization of Jeongmian domestic politics in the early 1830s. Government structures differed between the six northeastern colonies, where Mincangan-established law and self-government had largely been allowed to persist, and the Jeongmian-established southern and western colonies, where governmental frameworks were imported from the standard Jeongmian colonial model. The expansion of the Jeongmian colonies, perceived favoritism, and an aborted attempt to enforce Jeongmian-language-only policies across all of the territories resulted in conflict between Mincangan farmers, Remapese allies, and Jeongmian ranchers, which erupted into the 1852-1858 Bush War in the central interior. Jeongmian defeat of the rebelling colonists, with the help of outside contingents from the Jeongmian Army, put down any notions of sovereignty but led to the implementation of careful multi-ethnic balancing policies and the foundation of key Namboan national myths.

In 1872, gold was discovered in eastern Nambo, sparking a massive gold rush that increased the Namboan population by more than 500,000 (practically doubling its size) in ten years. Immigrants arrived from around the world, including all of continental Sinju, Fusen, Namju, Yahuimilco, and northern Cheongju. Several cities exploded in population in particular, including the boomtown of Imgajang (林家庄), at the center of the gold fields, and the major seaport of Achao (阿潮）, which was an important maritime stopover and the world's capital of the whaling industry, and also became the main port of entry for aspiring prospectors. The gold rush had lasting effects, causing an economic reinvigoration, the expansion of agriculture and ranching to meet the needs of the new settlers, the ability to import a large range of goods, and the rapid deployment of infrastructure by colonial governments.

Railways were quickly expanded, connecting the eastern coast and eastern interior by 1877, the west coast by 1880, and the whole continent by 1892. A Namboan military expedition to the northwest coast (also known as the Nambo-Qichwa War or the Northwest Frontier War) in 1886-7 eliminated the hazy northwest border of Nambo and firmly established Jeongmian control to the Eastern Ocean. This territory, annexed to the Western Colony, included valuable nitrate deposits, which Jeongmi exploited profitably. Expansion into the central desert also occurred following a second discovery of gold in that region and the continuing sale of ranching lands. Wheat exports grew massively, and the Namboan colonies placed among the wealthiest per capita and most developed regions of the world at the time. Several outlying islands were seized for guano production. In the subtropical and temperate far northeast, large numbers of north Cheongjuan and Yahuimilcan workers were imported to work on plantations, as well as in the fishing industry, despite substantial anti-non-Sinjuan discrimination. The influx of population during this period, as well as the subsequent accrual of substantial revenue to colonial governments, also created the impetus for full self-government in multiple colonies. With the colonies connected by rail and communications, and an increasingly substantial inter-colony trade, as well as a rise in national sentiment (especially in contrast to the surrounding indigenous nations), the prospect of federation began to be discussed.

The Jeongmian government finally pressured the colonies into agreeing to federation in 1903, establishing a national constitution and an elected legislative council. Jeongmian and Mincangan were retained as co-official languages in the new northeastern provinces. The period following federation saw the rise of party politics, a strong middle and working class, trade unions, a prominent labor movement, and the implementation of many national social services. Nambo instituted the world's first minimum wage law in 1908. Defense was also nationalized and consolidated, and Namboan soldiers participated in many of Jeongmi's colonial wars during this period, as well as operations in the rest of Cheongju. Immigrants continued to arrive from Jeongmi.

By the end of the 1800s, the indigenous population was limited to scattered settlements across the sparsely-populated northwestern, central, and southern deserts. Namboan colonial settlement had pressed to the southern tip of the continent. In 1907, the territory of Remapu was created through the Native Citizens and Homeland Law, with the intention of cordoning off the remaining Remapese population within a reservation that would ultimately become self-governing. From 1909 to 1915, mass forcible population transfers were conducted by the Namboan government, particularly from the coastal areas just north of Remapu, forming the culmination of one of the largest genocides ever perpetuated. Remapu was rushed to independence in 1920 and quickly recognized by the international community, though it continues to lag far behind Nambo in development and rely heavily upon it economically and politically, with large numbers of Remapese migrant workers traveling seasonally to Namboan cities for work. A small Remapese population continues to live in Nambo itself, mostly concentrated in small rural communities and outstations. Agitation for official recognition of Remapese rights and privileges has increased since the 1980s, and Remapese is now a co-official language in the three western provinces and can be taught in schools.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Nambo was heavily affected by the global economic depression, particularly because its economy was dependent on a small, undiversified set of exports. During the Eulhae War, Namboan troops served under Jeongmian command around the world. While most Namboans were strongly supportive of the Allied cause, some Mincangan Namboans, particularly rural small farmers, were opposed to the war effort, and resisted war measures. As a result, the Namboan government declared a state of emergency during the war, imposing elements of martial law and detaining and severely monitoring some prominent Mincangan Namboans suspected of harboring Contingent sympathies. During the war, Nambo's ports and harbors were also a key strategic asset to the Allies, allowing them to maintain naval control around the globe. Air and naval bases of the Namboan military pioneered radar and signalling technology that protected the whole of Cheongju. Namboan gold production financed the Jeongmian imperial treasury and financed the war effort.

The post-war era was another period of economic growth. Major copper, bauxite, and iron mines were developed in the west and far south. Large hydroelectricity and irrigation projects brought jobs and allowed for the intensive settlement of new areas. Immigration was encouraged from war-devastated Sinju, and suburbanization took hold across the country. The Namboan government also began to develop a more independent foreign policy, at last assuming sovereign control of all defense and diplomatic decisions and involving itself in conflicts in northern Cheongju, which it viewed as its backyard. Cooperation with Namju increased, forming a close "Southern Hemisphere alliance".

Runaway inflation crippled the Namboan economy for a period starting in the late 1970s, which was compounded by a constitutional crisis stemming from a corruption scandal surrounding longtime liberal Premier Sang Mun-hong (尚文鴻). Prospects had recovered by the early 1990s, however. The past 50 years have seen debates over free trade, the Namboan relationship to Jeongmi, rising inequality and corporate control, environmental protection, gun control, indigenous policy, Nambo's participation in foreign wars, and immigration. Immigration has been a particularly sensitive topic, with the perennial pressure of hundreds of thousands of refugees, asylum-seekers, and economic migrants from northern Cheongju and the Mulberry Ocean islands, particularly since the 1990s. While migrants provide crucial labor, particularly in the agricultural and mining sector, Namboan governments have continually struggled to solve the problem of illegal immigration. Nambo also has a large number of more skilled immigrants from Yeongju, and smaller populations from nearly every country in the world.

Today, Nambo is one of the wealthiest and most-developed countries in the world. Its economy is dominated by the service sector, followed by manufacturing, a highly fluctuating mining/natural resources sector (iron, gold, copper, bauxite, lithium, silver, natural gas), and a relatively stable agricultural sector (beef, wool, wheat, soy, maize, sunflower seeds, berries, kiwis, apples, tomatoes, oats, olives, potatoes, grapes, and yerba mate) with one of the largest areas of organic cultivation in the world. It has a thriving viticulture industry centered on the Swifthawk Bay coast, and a large arctic fishery. Nambo is a regional power and a member of several international alliances.

Are you willing to drastically alter your nation in order to fit with Tiandi canon?: Yes
Main nation on NS: Sansiao
Main/puppet/NPC: puppet (but I would like collaboration!)
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