AHC: More “Switzerlands”

And no, I don’t mean permanently neutral countries. I mean countries that exist at the crossroads of three different countries/cultural areas and contains people from the ethnic groups of all three of those countries. My ideas are:
A state in the former Austro-Hungarian empire containing Germans, Magyars, and Slavs.
A state in North Africa containing Africans, Arabs, and Berbers
Share any ideas you have here.
 
Transylvania works for the AH idea. Block Romania from taking it, and you have Romanians, Magyars, and the Saxon group.
 
Banat/Banatia was a strong contender post WWI even in OTL, you’d have Magyar, Romanian, and South Slavic people stuck between Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia/Serbia.
Transcaucasia is another possibility but it really wouldn’t share the main ethnicity of its neighbors (Turks, Persians, Russians).
A late-Qing or post Japanese occupation Manhuria/Manchuko will likely have more Chinese, Japanese, and even Russians than Manchus.
Balkanize India and you could create something in the north east of a similar nature.
And independent Texas,l can be made up of Anglo-American and Spanish/Mexican settlers.
min Africa you can do this very easily all across the continent.
 

Nephi

Banned
And no, I don’t mean permanently neutral countries. I mean countries that exist at the crossroads of three different countries/cultural areas and contains people from the ethnic groups of all three of those countries. My ideas are:
A state in the former Austro-Hungarian empire containing Germans, Magyars, and Slavs.
A state in North Africa containing Africans, Arabs, and Berbers
Share any ideas you have here.

A really reduced Austria Hungary could fit that leave what became Czechoslovakia with them.
 
The Low Countries could work very well for this. I don't know how plausible it is, but considering the area was a borderland between France and the Holy Roman Empire (and the English by sea) you might be able to have a comparable evolution there. You'd need the cities and towns to gain power at the expense of the various counts and prince-bishops in the area and unite in some alliance like the Old Swiss Confederacy. I'm not too familiar with the medieval history of this area outside the basics so I'm not sure if a Swiss-style Low Countries/Seventeen Provinces is doable, although it seems promising.

If things go right then the Seventeen Provinces should evolve similarly to Switzerland and end up multiethnic. We'd have a majority of Dutch speakers (like Germans in Switzerland), a powerful minority of French speakers (like the French in Switzerland), a small minority of German speakers (maybe, they might end up Dutch or advance their regional language like Luxemburgish or Limburgish, but in any case they'd be like the Italians in Switzerland), and a declining minority of Frisian speakers (like the Romantsch-speakers in Switzerland).

Unlike Switzerland, this country would be a powerhouse of Europe and probably counted as a great power given the colonial empire it would have, strong financial institutions, early industrialisation, etc.

A state in North Africa containing Africans, Arabs, and Berbers
That's OTL Morocco and especially Mauritania.

Banat/Banatia was a strong contender post WWI even in OTL, you’d have Magyar, Romanian, and South Slavic people stuck between Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia/Serbia.
Don't forget the huge German population, about a quarter of it IIRC.

On the same lines the Duchy of Bukovina would also work and like Switzerland is fairly mountainous. You'd have Ukrainians, Romanians, Germans, Jews, and Poles in one small country.
 
This isn't switzerland but might just work. Why not a surviving Kingdom of Lotharingia, or a scenario where Charles the Bald doesn't die prematurely and actually succeeds in getting the Crown of Lotharingia with Papal and Imperial Support as a counterweight to the French. Maybe Henry VI takes the throne of France in a world where Joan of Arc doesn't inspire the French to go on the offensive again.

You could have the Empire of Trebizond somehow survive with its lands holding Armenians, Greeks, Georgians, and Turks. Heck if Constantinople falls and the Komnenoi are able to successfully build up their state they can dominate the Black sea trade as a sort of Venice of the East.
 
In a way, hasn't Afghanistan always been like this? A mix of Iranian, Turkic, and Indian peoples and influences in a geographical crossroads.
 
Also, Kenya is the crossroads of the Afro-Asiatic, Nilotic, and Niger-Congo worlds. Three that's not three nationalities, that's three language families!
 
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And no, I don’t mean permanently neutral countries. I mean countries that exist at the crossroads of three different countries/cultural areas and contains people from the ethnic groups of all three of those countries.

I can name quite a few easy examples that would only take a few minor PODs:

Canada - combination of French, Anglospheric and (northern) Native American cultures.
Romania - combination of East Slavic, Hungarian and Bulgarian cultures
Iraq - combination of Sunni Arab, Shia Arab and Kurdish cultures
Ukraine - combination of East Slavic, West Slavic, Hungarian and Romanian cultures
Belgium - combination of Dutch, German and French cultures
Azjerbajan - combination of Armenian, Persian and East Slavic cultures
Turkey - combination of Greek, Armenian and Kurdish cultures
 
Manchuria already mentioned upthread. Also a potential for a large number of land hungry Korean peasants coming over the border depending on time period or even a rump North Korea joining plus various Cold War exiles.
 

Crazy Boris

Banned
A state in eastern Siberia around Amur, Khabarovsk, and Primorsky could be a blend of Russian/Slavic, Mongol, and Manchu/Tungusic

Andorra could easily be a mix of Catalan Occitan and Aragonese if those latter two groups had just slightly different distributions

and a state in the Ferghana valley would automatically give you an Uzbek/Tajik/Kyrgyz mix (maybe even throw in the Yaghnobi to be like an analogue to the Romansch)
 
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And no, I don’t mean permanently neutral countries. I mean countries that exist at the crossroads of three different countries/cultural areas and contains people from the ethnic groups of all three of those countries. My ideas are:
A state in the former Austro-Hungarian empire containing Germans, Magyars, and Slavs.
A state in North Africa containing Africans, Arabs, and Berbers
Share any ideas you have here.
Belgium that also consists of Luxembourg.
 
Transylvania would be a good one. Germans, Magyars, Transylvania, confederalism, religious diversity, neutrality, mountains.
 
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The Low Countries could work very well for this. I don't know how plausible it is, but considering the area was a borderland between France and the Holy Roman Empire (and the English by sea) you might be able to have a comparable evolution there. You'd need the cities and towns to gain power at the expense of the various counts and prince-bishops in the area and unite in some alliance like the Old Swiss Confederacy. I'm not too familiar with the medieval history of this area outside the basics so I'm not sure if a Swiss-style Low Countries/Seventeen Provinces is doable, although it seems promising.

If things go right then the Seventeen Provinces should evolve similarly to Switzerland and end up multiethnic. We'd have a majority of Dutch speakers (like Germans in Switzerland), a powerful minority of French speakers (like the French in Switzerland), a small minority of German speakers (maybe, they might end up Dutch or advance their regional language like Luxemburgish or Limburgish, but in any case they'd be like the Italians in Switzerland), and a declining minority of Frisian speakers (like the Romantsch-speakers in Switzerland)

But in that case, it would be like Switzerland in the sense of the OP: a country that "exist at the crossroads of three different countries/cultural areas and contains people from the ethnic groups of all three of those countries ", since there would only be one country associated with the Dutch speakers, namely the United Provinces themselves (assuming, of course, that Dutch would still be considered a separate language, sociolinguistically speaking). The analogy with German speaking Switzerland would be lost.

The Low Countries might therefore not be the best place to look for, for the simple reason that there's already a Switerland analogue in OTL: Belgium, with its Dutch speakers, French speakers and smaller group of German speakers. The main difference is, of course, that there's no Romansh analogue.
 
But in that case, it would be like Switzerland in the sense of the OP: a country that "exist at the crossroads of three different countries/cultural areas and contains people from the ethnic groups of all three of those countries ", since there would only be one country associated with the Dutch speakers, namely the United Provinces themselves (assuming, of course, that Dutch would still be considered a separate language, sociolinguistically speaking). The analogy with German speaking Switzerland would be lost.

The Low Countries might therefore not be the best place to look for, for the simple reason that there's already a Switerland analogue in OTL: Belgium, with its Dutch speakers, French speakers and smaller group of German speakers. The main difference is, of course, that there's no Romansh analogue.

Walloon? Ch'ti?
 
Goa could have become a vaguely Switzerland analogue country, if the Portuguese had been even slightly smart. You have a small but strong minority of Portuguese speakers, large majority of Marathi speakers, a strong majority of kannada speakers and a weak minority of kokani speakers.

There's many other places in India where you could have Switzerland analogue - not least of which is Bhutan which is both mountainous and at a crossroads between different cultures.
 
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