Underestimated countries

[Fire God]

I would say Korea is vastly underestimated, they have so much potential for doing what Meiji Japan did, but it's usually derailed by either weak rulers, ultra-conservative scholar class in the government, land invasions, or all of them at once.

And in South Am it's Paraquay and Uruquay. Paraquay had a little interest because it was a hermit kingdom with the same dictator for 30 years who took in all the Nazis. Uruquay...well...see, I can't even think anything about it.

It used to be Belize in Central Am but now they have resorts.

Hopefully, in a TL I'm working on, the area that would be OTL Montevideo, Uruguay would be the focal point. Otherwise, some other part of temperate South America would be used.

 

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

Then there's the giant City-State of Plovdiv, the Terror of the Lower Danube.

Plovdiv's not a Danubian port.

 

[Hendryk]

A few here are devoted to China, (all from Hendryk if I´m not mistaken)

Actually Faeelin in particular has displayed remarkable creativity with China-centered ATLs. But your point still stands: considering that China has steadily accounted for a fifth of the world's population (a fourth if you factor in the Sinosphere as a whole) throughout the last 4 millennia, its AH potential is severely underestimated.

I generally tend to feel that Africa and Latin America get a bum rap, though there is the odd exception, like robertp6165's "Guns of the Tawantinsuya". Asia fares comparatively better, thanks in large part to Flocculencio, who has single-handedly put India back on the map.

 

[Justin Pickard]

Ukraine, the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Courland, Livonia), Hungary, Yugoslavia, and the Balkans in general.

 

[Ran Exilis]

All of Africa, esp. south of Sahara, except for Egypt and South Africa.

Very true. I have seen only a handful of threads about sub-Saharan Africa, and the only thread I've seen so far about a uniquely and independant African civilisation I've seen was a either a WI or a Challenge thread about this that I posted myself!

Native Americans, except for Inca and esp. Aztecs.

Wasn't there a thread about a North American Native American civilisation a while ago?

Persia indeed. Although I wonder if there might be a connection to Shia Islam: Since it tells that there's a hidden Imam who'll return one day, this has lead to the situation that Shiites either practice quietism (no wonder you don't hear about them), or make bloody uprisings (the revolution of 1980 could be counted as that too).

And again you're right. My WI about a Shi'ite Caliphate in Persia was one of the few exceptions, together with the strong Persia in your Chaos TL.

Finland. Except in some Finwank AH written by a Finnish cyberpunk fan

very VERY true...

Portugal and SE Europe.

Yes, especially Portugal is often left out.
Which is actually quite suprising, because Portugal has enormous potential for ATL's...

..
Just another question, how many threads and ATL's with a focus on the Netherlands are there, actually?

I haven't seen all that many TL's etc. about Holland, you know.
(or I just missed all those...)

 

[Fungi of Yuggoth]

Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. All of those had a chance to become first world nations or even big powers(Brazil and Argentina)

 

[EvolvedSaurian]

..
Just another question, how many threads and ATL's with a focus on the Netherlands are there, actually?

I haven't seen all that many TL's etc. about Holland, you know.
(or I just missed all those...)

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=26663

 

[Blackbeard]

I haven't seen many about Malaysia and Indo-China.

What about New Netherlands?

 

[Hapsburg]

Three of them aren't even really independant countries.

No, actually, only one of those aren't fully independent, and that is Andorra, and only because Andorra is co-ruled by France's ruler. Liechtenstein and Monaco are independent principalities, and Luxemburg is an independent Grand Duchy.

 

[Codeman]

I tried to find a pod for Africa to unite it but i cant seem to find one. If somone could find one I would write one about africa.

 

[Fabilius]

I agree at the erroneous backward-projection of Japanese history, but I think Fab's quote (sorry to pick you out, Fab, a lot of people do this) illustrates a similar misconception about India:

People think of India as being one country. Backward-projecting from now when it's a (mostly) peaceful united republic. But that is a consequence of how an 'Indian national identity' arose in reaction to British rule. Prior to the era of European colonisation, India was rarely united by a single power for very long (the Guptas and the Mughals are the only examples that spring to mind).

Hence, your other pet peeve that India is nearly always some generic united empire in your average TL, but doesn't project its power into e.g. the East Indies. The reason being that I bet the average timeline writer vaguely thinks that India has always been a united empire in OTL.

Of course, China has gone through its fractured periods as well, but I think it's far more reasonable to think of the 'default setting' of China as a united empire than of India.

I totally agree with you, and this isn´t a misconception I have. I´ve done a little better reading on India than that, although I haven´t studied it as a whole. I was thinking of India, as the geographical area that India has, which is very underused. I don´t mean this pick a country, so much as just pick an area that is rarely changed from it´s OTL to it´s ATL.

 

[Fabilius]

I generally tend to feel that Africa and Latin America get a bum rap, though there is the odd exception, like robertp6165's "Guns of the Tawantinsuya". .

One of my fav´s on this website, especially because it takes a culture that usually is disregarded.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

With exceptions, prior to recent years most FHs ignored India's presence. It's funny you get some dystopias or cyberpunk worlds where the Pacific Rim is on fire with crazy decadent cyber-captalism, yet nothing happened to India, not even a mention's worth.

 

[Dave Howery]

Portugal seems to be a big one.... it was a really big player in colonial days, held Brazil, big chunks of Africa, parts of India, parts of the Pacific... somehow got eclipsed by Spain and Britain, but surely that could be changed...

 

[Thande]

Portugal seems to be a big one.... it was a really big player in colonial days, held Brazil, big chunks of Africa, parts of India, parts of the Pacific... somehow got eclipsed by Spain and Britain, but surely that could be changed...

I agree with this.

There are a lot of good early colonial WIs with Portugal: I think they even had a protectorate over the Mandaeans in Arabia at one point in the 1500s (three guesses who told me this ). And Angola and Mozambique and their Indian possessions go back a LOOOOONG way.

If Spain hadn't absorbed Portugal for a while in the C17 (and once Portugal was free again it had to take back Brazil from the Netherlands) it could have been one of the great powers.

 

[Douglas]

Did it have the population base to become a *great* power? I would tend to think that it didn't.

 

[Thande]

Did it have the population base to become a *great* power? I would tend to think that it didn't.

I think one could seriously say the same about Britain. In the eighteenth century, when the colonial struggle for supremacy reached its height, our population was only half that of France.

If there is an obstacle to Portugal's great power-hood, it's that it's always going to be vulnerable to a ruinous land war with Spain.

 

[The Gunslinger]

Outside a few key areas, most of the world is underestimated. If you look at the number of TL's about a powerful Germany, Britain, USA, Japan, France, Russia, that covers just about 75%of the timelines.

 

[Max Sinister]

We're not talking about countries who never become powerful in history (which the Portuguese did), but about countries underrepresented in AH.

 

[Thande]

We're not talking about countries who never become powerful in history (which the Portuguese did), but about countries underrepresented in AH.

Yes, but it's often 'alternate great powers' that form the basis for AHs. Which of course can lead to -wank if it's overdone. My point was that there are good possible PODs in Portuguese history to allow great power status.