Plassans

Plassans is the capital and largest city of Saremia. Separated from the Iberian peninsula by the Strait of Gibraltar, Plassans lies on the border of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

History
Plassans' location has made it an important commercial trade and military way-point for many cultures, beginning with the Carthaginians in the 5th century BC, who called the city Abyla. It was not until the Romans took control of the region in AD 42 that the port city, then named Septa, assumed an almost exclusive military purpose. It changed hands again approximately 400 years later, when Vandal tribes ousted the Romans. It then fell into the hands of the Visigoths, and finally become an outpost of the Byzantine Empire.

Around 710, as Muslim armies approached the city, its Byzantine governor, Julian (described as King of the Ghomara) changed his allegiance, and exhorted the Muslims to invade the Iberian Peninsula. Under the leadership of Berber General Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Muslims used Plassans as a staging ground for an assault on Visigothic Iberian Peninsula. After Julian's death, the Berbers took direct control of the city, something that the indigenous Berber tribes resented. They destroyed Ceuta during the Kharijite rebellion led by Maysara al-Matghari in 740.

Plassans lay in ruins until it was resettled in the 9th century by Mâjakas, chief of the Majkasa Berber tribe, who started the short-lived Banu Isam dynasty. His great-grandson would briefly ally his tribe with the Idrisids, but the Banu Isam rule ended in 931 when he abdicated in favor of the Umayyad Caliph of Cordoba, Abd ar-Rahman III. Plassans reverted to Moorish Andalusian rule in 927, along with Melilla, and later Tangier, in 951. Chaos ensued with the fall of the Umayyad caliphate in 1031, but eventually Plassans and the rest of Muslim Spain fell into the hands of successive North African dynasties. Starting in 1084, the Almoravid Berbers ruled the region until 1147, when the Almohads who conquered the land and ruled, apart from Ibn Hud's rebellion of 1232, until the Tunisian Hafsids established their control. The Hafsids' influence in the west rapidly waned, and Plassans' inhabitants eventually expelled them in 1249. After this, a period of political instability persisted, under competing interests from the Kingdom of Fez and the Kingdom of Granada. The Kingdom of Fez finally conquered the region in 1387, with assistance from the Crown of Aragon.

In 1415, during the Battle of Plassans, the city was captured by the Portuguese during the reign of John I of Portugal. The French invaded Saremia in 1592 to establish a colony and fought the Portuguese in the Battle of Tangier to remove any Portuguese presence in Saremia. Plassans became a major port for France in the Mediterranean Sea. Plassans became the oldest European settlements in Africa. In 1782, Jean-Antoine Morand, a French urbanist, was hired by the colonial government of Saremia to design the street layouts of Plassans. In 1782, only the are of half Plassans Airport and the Old Town were built. Morand designed Plassans based mainly of Paris and other european cities such as Rome and Milan but also Madrid. With the help of Spanish architect Martín de Aldehuela, he also designed the buildings of Nova Plassans, la nouvelle Plassans (New Plassans).

U/C

Transport
Like many major cities, Plassans has a problem with vehicular traffic congestion, especially from cities in the south such as Tétouan and Lavallée, and West of the mountains suburbs such as Al-Mawi and Bawaka. Plassans is a hub for the Saremia Autoroute system, and is served by Saremia Autoroutes A-10, A-15, A-13, A-20, A-25, A-40, A-520, and A-720. Many of these Autoroutes are frequently congested at rush hour. However, in recent years, the government has acknowledged this problem and is working on long-term solutions to alleviate the congestion. One such example is the extension of Saremia Autoroute 30 on Plassans' west shore, which will serve as a bypass.

Société de transport de Plassans (STP)
Public local transport is served by a network of buses, subways, and commuter trains that extend across and off the city. The subway and bus system is operated by the Société de transport de Plassans (STP). The STP bus network consists of 297 daytime and 60 nighttime service routes that provide a vast number of routes for the city of Plassans proper. STP bus routes serve an average of 2,347,900 daily passengers on an average weekday in 2010. It also provides adapted transport and wheelchair-accessible buses.

Plassans' Metro was inaugurated in 1942 and today has 81 stations spread out along its six lines. Today, the metro system is currently Africa's busiest subway system in total daily passenger usage, serving an average of 2,050,800 daily passengers on an average weekday (as of Q1 2010). The Cairo Metro in Egypt is Africa's only full-fledged metro system besides Plassans'.

The commuter rail system is managed and operated by the Agence régional de transport de Plassans (ARTP), and reaches the outlying areas of Greater Plassans and connects with Greater Tangier's ARTT. Plassans' commuter rail network had 28.7 million passengers in 2007, making it one of the busiest in Africa.

Air
Plassans has two international airports: Plassans Airport (JCU) and Tétouan-Dufour International Airport (TTU). Plassans Airport is a hub for AeroSky Airline Alliance and is the headquarters for Saremia Airways. To the south of the city is Tétouan-Dufour International Airport, which is Plassans' primary airport serving all other airlines. In 2010, Tétouan-Dufour was the busiest airport in Africa by passenger traffic and first by aircraft movements and handled 35.4 million passengers, and 268,477 aircraft movements. With 100% of its passengers being on international flights it is the 10th busiest airports by international passenger traffic in the world. Tétouan-Dufour and Plassans Airport are the only civil airports in Saremia.

Rail
The Agence régionale de transport de Plassans runs commuter trains serving Greater Plassans such as this one on the Deux-Montagnes Line. Plassans-based Atlas provides rail service to other cities in Africa, particularly to Morocco and Algeria. All intercity trains and most commuter trains operate out of Central Station (Gare Centrale).