# Fake country names **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 5, 2018, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476 "2018-06-05T17:54:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/102 "2018-06-14T21:15:00Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > That one has confused me because I’m unfamiliar with the source. And now Nagorno-Karabakh has changed its name to Artsakh, which sounds a lot like it. It’s a video game where you are a border guard in a fictional communist state. But also it became [an internet meme](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/glory-to-arstotzka). Huh, In didn’t get the Artsakh memo, thanks. I also got that we’re supposed to be saying “Czechia” but apparently so have 99% of English speakers. ---
**Author:** ![Scarecrow\_s\_Brain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@Scarecrow\_s\_Brain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarecrow_s_Brain)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/103 "2018-06-14T21:31:35Z")
Larry Hama’s G.I. Joe run had several made up countries, from Eastern Europe (Borovia and, my favorite, Wolkekuckukkland (German for “Cloud Cockoo Land”), to the Middle East (Trucial Abysmia, Benzheen), and Latin America (Sierra Gordo). He continued this in the revived series with a tip of the hat to Laurel and Hardy, Olliestan. sb ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/104 "2018-06-15T00:05:46Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Two of my favorite Ruritania names are Vlatava and Modora, from DC Comics. Vltava is the name of the largest Czech river - I don’t know the other one. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/105 "2018-06-15T06:06:05Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > DC has a lot of little made-up countries, to the point they have had a couple of places nuked or otherwise completely destroyed for the sake of a story. Both the cases of this I can think of off the top of my head are real places though - Montevideo, Uruguay, and San Diego, USA. (Superbia was founded over the ruins of Montevideo, and San Diego became Sub Diego for several years before being restored.) ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/106 "2018-06-15T16:12:41Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Both the cases of this I can think of off the top of my head are real places though - Montevideo, Uruguay, and San Diego, USA. (Superbia was founded over the ruins of Montevideo, and San Diego became Sub Diego for several years before being restored.) There was a dumb joke a few years back when they where still publishing Justice Society. The aging Johnny Thunder had developed dementia and one of the other characters muttered that he was pretty sure Bandarstan had never existed. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/107 "2018-06-15T17:59:59Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Both the cases of this I can think of off the top of my head are real places though - Montevideo, Uruguay, and San Diego, USA. (Superbia was founded over the ruins of Montevideo, and San Diego became Sub Diego for several years before being restored.) I don’t have the comics where these happened, so I had to look them up. Qurac’s capital was nuked at some point. This was sometimes referenced in later comics as if the country were destroyed. I had some later Titans comics with a supporting character who was Quraci, and I got the impression the country was just gone. Also, John Ostrander did _something_ obscene to Vlatava when he was writing _The Spectre_. And of course, it’s DC. Parts of Australia were missing after the Dominator invasion; and Dan Jurgens’s Superman run had Coast City (sort of ersatz Seattle, but I always thought it seemed like California) destroyed by Hank Henshaw or somebody. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/108 "2018-06-17T10:20:39Z")
I can’t believe I forgot Coast City getting it. Kind of an important part of Hal’s fall. :smack: And, now that I’m thinking about it, didn’t Kahndaq get it near the end of 52? (_Checks_…Nope, that was Bialya, after they murdered Black Adam’s family.) ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/109 "2018-06-17T10:57:29Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Qurac’s capital was nuked at some point. Looking up when that happened, I discover that Qurac’s capital is Abu Dhabi, so while Qurac, itself, is fictional, nuking its capital would be a case of destroying a real world city. (The map of Qurac used for its Wikipedia entry (seems to be from an issue of Suicide Squad) shows it as carved out of most of Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and a sliver of Saudi Arabia to tie all that together.) > [@](#): > > Coast City (sort of ersatz Seattle, but I always thought it seemed like California) Coast City is in California. It’s Star City (Green _Arrow_’s hometown) that’s often treated as a pseudo-Seattle (since Green Arrow operated out of Seattle for some years), though it was also officially in California for several years. Currently, it’s no longer a pseudo-Seattle, it’s actually a new name for what used to be Seattle. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/110 "2018-06-17T11:29:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You’re not going to find country names “like Canada” or “like Israel”, because you’re trying to extrapolate from one data point. The way these things work is, you start with some set of real names, and look at what they have in common. Thus, for instance, if you want a fake central Asian country, you can note that most countries in that part of the world end in -stan, and that a lot of them have a K somewhere before that, and so on, and end up with something like “Hakisakistan”. But if your starting set of countries is just {Canada}, then you find that all of the names are six letters long, and all of them end in “nada”, and all of them start with “Ca”, and you end up with your new name being “Canada”. Of course you can extrapolate from one data point. The name “Canada” is an Huron-Iroquois word for “village”. “Israel” is a Biblical Hebrew name that means “Who prevails with God”. Any similarly sounding Indian word (or Indian-sounding) would imply a country in northern North America. Hebrew or Biblical words (or sounding words) would imply a Jewish state. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/111 "2018-06-17T12:29:13Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Any similarly sounding Indian word (or Indian-sounding) would imply a country in northern North America. Which doesn’t actually address them problem. If your not-Canada is meant to exist in a world that could be mistaken for the real world, it’s obvious to anyone who’s seen a world map, especially one who’d get that reference, there’s no place in that region it could actually _go_ - Canada and the US are the second and third largest countries in the world, so they obviously take up the whole area. A good candidate for placing a fictional country is an area with a lot of smaller countries, not a couple huge ones. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/112 "2018-06-17T12:45:38Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > A good candidate for placing a fictional country is an area with a lot of smaller countries, not a couple huge ones. Hence tiny forgotten-about principalities, grand duchies and Balkan micro-states, like Pontevedro (The Merry Widow), Averno (an Albert Campion mystery), Strackenz (Royal Flash), Grand Fenwick (The Mouse That Roared), and of course good old Ruritania. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/113 "2018-06-17T16:50:58Z")
Marvel Comics has a lot of fictional countries as well: Latveria, Wakanda, Genosha, Symkaria, Transia. They released _The Marvel Atlas_ in 2008 which is an atlas of the Marvel Universe showing all their fictional countries and locations. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/114 "2018-06-17T17:46:03Z")
Huh. I just realized that Wakanda is the only fictional African country I can think of. Plenty of fictional tribes, but no other fictional countries. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/115 "2018-06-17T18:29:52Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > How about Ruthenia? It has “Ruth” in it, it’s cryptically eastern European, and its history and precise location are subject to some dispute. > > About 25 years ago, a con man in Washington DC tried to pass himself off as a Ruthenian official. His phony letterhead featured a Star of David. This con man’s line was that after the Soviet Union broke up, he wound up with some of the financial and nuclear assets of Moldova, and anyway he wanted diplomatic recognition. He didn’t get it. > > Ruthenia was an enclave located on the Ukrainian/Slovakian/Polish border. The demonym is “Rusyn” and Steve Ditko’s family came from there. I’ve heard of another Ruthenia in Moldava (about 100 miles away), and that it was the nationality claimed by Jews in Moldava before the Holocaust, but I can’t find anything online about this. THere is also “Carpathian Ruthenia” in Austria. > > " That’s where my family came from. But it is not heavily Jewish. How about the Duchy of Grand Fenwick? ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/116 "2018-06-17T18:35:41Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Huh. I just realized that Wakanda is the only fictional African country I can think of. Plenty of fictional tribes, but no other fictional countries. > **[List of fictional African countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_African_countries)** > > This is a list of fictional countries that are set somewhere in the continent of Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/117 "2018-06-17T18:53:23Z")
Three pages and no mention of Ankh-Morpork? With Klatch, Ephebia, Djelybabi and a whole host of other Discworld states standing in for European, Asian and African countries. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/118 "2018-06-17T19:57:33Z")
Those are places in a fictional world-- If we’re going there, we could also include Gondor, Narnia, Amn, and all sorts of other places. This is about fictional places somewhere in what is otherwise our world. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/119 "2018-06-18T00:41:05Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Huh. I just realized that Wakanda is the only fictional African country I can think of. Plenty of fictional tribes, but no other fictional countries. Zamunda? ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/120 "2018-06-18T01:12:29Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Zamunda? _googles_ I think I might have seen part of that movie when I was a kid, but sure didn’t know where he was from. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476/121 "2018-06-18T04:59:14Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Huh. I just realized that Wakanda is the only fictional African country I can think of. Plenty of fictional tribes, but no other fictional countries. Kôr, where\* She\* lives & rules. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-country-names/815476.md?page=7)