# Bujold: Geographic equivalents in the 5 Gods Universe **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [April 17, 2023, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bujold-geographic-equivalents-in-the-5-gods-universe/982825 "2023-04-17T23:30:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2023, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bujold-geographic-equivalents-in-the-5-gods-universe/982825/1 "2023-04-17T23:30:10Z")
Bujold’s Five Gods Universe (or [World of the Five Gods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_the_Five_Gods)) is loosely based on European history/geography of the late Medieval/Renaisance period. It’s not a perfect match. For example, there’s no equivalent of the Pope and for that matter, no Italian peninsula. Also, it’s moved to the southern hemisphere, so that warmer climates are in the north. However, there are rough equivalents of many countries. Many of them are fairly obvious, but I can’t figure all of them. Can anyone fill in or confirm the question marks below. Chalion = Castile Brajar = Portugal Ibra = Aragon Yiss = Navarre Darthaca = France The Weald = Germany Thasalon/Cedonia = Byzantium/East Roman Empire The Cantons = Switzerland Westria = Austria Lodi/Adria = Venice Saone = Provence ? Grabyat = Hungary ? Trigonie = ? Vilnoc/Orbas = ? Carpagamo = ? Raspay = ? Rathnatta = Sicily ? Lantihera = ? Limnos = ? Googling, I find that Raspay is the name of a real village in Spain, so obviously Bujold borrowed that name. She also borrowed Lodi, although in neither case is the real world place the equivalent of the fictional. And it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s no good equivalent of Lantihera. Anyway, any help here? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bujold-geographic-equivalents-in-the-5-gods-universe/982825/2 "2023-04-18T00:37:09Z")
Holy crap on a stick, if you had asked this before my damned house burnt down and my computer melted, I could have given you chapter and verse from the lips [ok, keyboard] of Herself - I have been a member of the Lois Bujold email list for pushing 18 or 20 years [holy crap, that damned long?!] I know it has been answered several times over the years =) I think I might be able to port this question over and get direct answers, need to log into my emails =) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bujold-geographic-equivalents-in-the-5-gods-universe/982825/3 "2023-04-18T03:26:25Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > I have been a member of the Lois Bujold email list for pushing 18 or 20 years Hey, I was on that mailing list back in the 90s. I think I left because there was too much stuff on it that I wasn’t interested in. Got tired of wading through it to get to anything interesting. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bujold-geographic-equivalents-in-the-5-gods-universe/982825/4 "2023-04-18T17:33:14Z")
Well, it did sort of end up being a bunch of friends, so we treated it like our own living room =) ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bujold-geographic-equivalents-in-the-5-gods-universe/982825/5 "2023-04-18T18:41:16Z")
_Are_ there direct equivalents for every locale in the stories? I mean, yes, Chalion and Ibra = Castile and Aragon, Cedonia = the Byzantine Empire, the cantons = Switzerland, that stuff is pretty obvious. But it doesn’t seem to me that _every_ city or town is based on a real-world equivalent. It’s sufficient for the story to know that Lantihera is a poor island of the coast of Orbas, whose economy is based on piracy, for example, without needing to figure out its historical analog. It’s fun to play that game, though, of course. In which spirit I’d say the closest equivalent would be one of the Caribbean “pirate ports”, such as Tortuga or Port Royal. Not geographically contiguous, and neither had the Muslim-Christian conflict that Bujold mirrors with the Quintarian/Quadrene split, but they otherwise match, especially Tortuga. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bujold-geographic-equivalents-in-the-5-gods-universe/982825/6 "2023-04-18T21:08:00Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > It’s sufficient for the story to know that Lantihera is a poor island of the coast of Orbas, whose economy is based on piracy, for example, without needing to figure out its historical analog. > > It’s fun to play that game, though, of course. In which spirit I’d say the closest equivalent would be one of the Caribbean “pirate ports”, such as Tortuga or Port Royal. Not geographically contiguous, and neither had the Muslim-Christian conflict that Bujold mirrors with the Quintarian/Quadrene split, but they otherwise match, especially Tortuga. There were pirate ports in the [Adriatic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uskoks), too, which feels to me more likely to be the historical inspiration for most of Penric’s adventures. I haven’t tried too hard to map the stories onto real-world settings either, but my general impression is Slovenia / Croatia / Montenegro / somewhere thereabouts.