Divergent Longitudes: an East-West swap scenario

Cool concept. I would imagine it would look something like this:

China = continental Europe (unified by Rome)
Tibet = Caucasus
Mongolia = Eastern Slavs
Korea = Scandinavia
Japan = Britain
S.E Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia etc) = North Africa and the Middle East

India and Persia might remain relatively the same in the short term, though there will be big changes in the long term of course, since Islam for example will probably be butterflied (maybe something like Zoroastrianism takes its place in the region?)

And I assume China will split into many independent kingdoms, thus taking the role of OTL Europe?
 
And I assume China will split into many independent kingdoms, thus taking the role of OTL Europe?
I assume China will become Europe, will we see a worse fall of the Han Dynasty ITTL? Maybe a worse fall combined with more intense barbarian invasions causes greater linguistic and cultural division in China? Would China TTL simply be known as a region in the East?
 
Would China TTL simply be known as a region in the East?
Good question
Will China even go by that? Because if Im not mistaken that name is derived from the Qin/Chin and I'm skeptical that a chinese Europe equivalent would go with that when OTL doesnt go by Rome anymore
I feel like a mythical name like "Europa" would be their choice here, "Huaxia" for example is a good candidate
 
So I was just now considering how colonization would go so here's my ramblings on that front

One of the big things that caused colonization of the Americas IOTL is that Europe didn't have nearly as many luxury resources as Asian lands like China and India did (Christopher Columbus went west specifically because the Spanish wanted spice that the Ottomans closed off to them). Without such a motivator, colonization is gonna be slower.

Also, American geography needs to be taken into account. Most of the large mountain ranges in the Americas tend to be on the Westward side (the Rockies and Andes), and the few on the Eastward side (Appalachia) tend to be smaller and shorter. And that's not even getting into the sheer size of the Pacific Ocean, so rest stops like the Alaskan islands, Hawaii, and Polynesia are gonna be very important.

Asian colonizers would have an EXTREMELY rough start, not only having to pass over the Pacific, but also having to cross extremely large mountain ranges or even further sea trips to get to the arguably much more settleable East. The Northwest Passage and southern tip of SA are gonna be crucial, with whoever owning them essentially holding the keys to the Americas, and there could even be an Alt-Panama Canal earlier than OTL out of sheer desperation by the vying powers. If there's an Alt-American revolution, it's gonna happen way later than IOTL, since it'd take way longer to get settled, but a USAnalogue is a rambling for later.

Not to mention, prosthelytizing their faith in the name of God. I have no clue if there'll be a religion that's as pro-expansion as OTL Christianity. Then again, if Christianity is essentially Buddhism, then it's likely that Buddhism is the Christian analogue with Buddha and Jesus swapping roles (or more crazily, there'll be an entirely different AltJesus). Nationalistic Buddhism IS a real thing, just very hard to find (see Burma's relationship with Muslims), so it could work. This would also mean that East Asia completely embraces Buddhism while Christianity is semi accepted but not the norm in Rome. They'd probably keep the old pantheon around.

I could keep going on implications for a long time, but I'll stop here. While this is a swap scenario, it's definitely not a 1:1.
 
Greenland is far more inhospitable than western Australia; it's actually the equivalent of Alaska.

Possibly Romania for the Uyghurs and Anatolia for Tibet, due to the Carpathian Mountains and Anatolian Plateaus.

I'm thinking of having India and the Middle East just be carried along without any major reversal equivalents, since India has a far-more tropical environment for kingdoms than Arabia does.
Greenland could be the US-analogue's purchase of Alaska?


(Though it's probably too early to start theorizing about that, and I for one personally would want something beyond 1:1 switch between Europe and east? Asia - use the broad concept of a role reversal as the basis for the timeline, yes, but also introduce changes and mixes into the timeline, leading to a world somewhat recognizably but also different from our own by the modern day...)
 
SHNIP

I could keep going on implications for a long time, but I'll stop here. While this is a swap scenario, it's definitely not a 1:1.
SNIEP


(Though it's probably too early to start theorizing about that, and I for one personally would want something beyond 1:1 switch between Europe and east? Asia - use the broad concept of a role reversal as the basis for the timeline, yes, but also introduce changes and mixes into the timeline, leading to a world somewhat recognizably but also different from our own by the modern day...)
Yeah, that's the goal here. I'm keeping some major elements (analogues of the PRC/Taiwan conflict with Europe and Britain, the United States) but the rest is free game; the geography makes an exact 1-to-1 reversal impossible.
 
INTERLUDE // Ides and Tides of History
— MAP INTERLUDE —
Ides and Tides of History

8-DBC453-A-CBBB-409-E-A4-FA-437-B848-C3-D1-E.png

A map of the Mediterranean in 44 BC, days before the failed assassination of Julius Caesar.
 
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