Say that an island nation managed to conquer a large amount of territory in a nearby continental landmass -- Britain conquering most of Europe, say, or Japan taking large areas of China. In such a circumstance, do you think it plausible that the empire would be administered from the home island, or would the government inevitably decamp to the mainland, where most of its territory and population were?
Ruling a continent from an island
- Thread starter Fabius Maximus
- Start date
If OTL's British Empire is anything to go by, it is at least plausible to keep the government on the island.
However, I cannot think of any actual OTL example (the closest that comes to my mind is the so-called Angevin Empire).
Also, Earth's geography does not have much more possibilities that the ones you mentioned (maybe a Sri Lankan state ruling a large part of South India? Habana being the capital of a post-Independence Spanish America? Both look difficult).
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
The classic AH cliche of Japanese-ruled China. About a dozen possible candidates in the Mediterranean. A Tasmania-based Australian empire (something like Lands of Red and Gold)
Thinking about it, for a while the Normans ran most of southern Italy from Sicily. This should count as an historical example, although relatively small scale. There's also Roussillon as a part of the Kingdom of Maiorca, although it's tiny. However, in general Mediterranean polities on islands did rarely rule large tracts of the mainland from island centres (the capital of the "Kingdom of Sardinia" was Turin, for instance).
I was just going to suggest an Australia ruled from Java - perhaps in the Majapahit era?
Well Java today has several times the population of Australia, so that's more like Britain running Canada.
The OP specified territory, but didn't mention population - I'm just trying to get in via a loop-hole ;-)
It all depends on the centrality of the capital/island relative to the rest of the continent.
Britain can only afford to rule the British Empire from an island and not from somewhere like India because it never intended to integrate it's non-white population.
Britain can only afford to rule the British Empire from an island and not from somewhere like India because it never intended to integrate it's non-white population.
THe only thought in my mind is somehow to make all of Africa be ruled from Madagascar.
How about the RoC on Taiwan starts to retake the mainland after it falls into something in the Rumsfeldia timeline? Even RoC control of only Fujian and Guangdong would still vastly outnumber Taiwan's small population.
How much of the mainland and which parts does it take?If it takes control of only Fujian and Guangdong then it makes sense for the capital to remain in Taiwan,as it would be easier to defend the capital in Taiwang.Taipei is also kind of a center to the three provinces.
Well, Rome is on a peninsula with some big mountains on its edge. Most of its territories were reached by sea, even the ones with a direct land connection. So, its kinda similar.
The capital would probably be on the island or island(s), although it's ASB for Britain or Japan to pull this off.
Trouble getting food there.It's also not in the center of the empire.During the principate period,an emperor would have to be suicidal to try and move a capital there(if he doesn't get murdered by the Praetorian Guard or deposed by the senators,he'd probably be lynched by a very angry mob) and in the dominate period,it's just strategically poor to move a capital there.