Cordova

Cordova, officially the Cordovan Republic (Italian: Repubblica Cordovano), and colloquially known as Aurora (Italian for “dawn/sunrise”) is a sovereign state within the Baliscan Confederation. Its mainland largely consists of the easternmost portion of the island of Atlantide. With over 28 million inhabitants in 2019, it is the third most populous of the Baliscan regions. If it was its own country, Cordova would be the ?? Most populous country in Latin America, and the ?? Most populous in the world. Cordova is home to Balisca’s second largest metropolitan area, Alessandria. Other large cities in the country include San Marco, Buonovento, Santissmo, and Rivarossa. It is made up of ten regions; Austral, Basilia, Piscaria, Calare, Campostella, Costa d’Fuoco, Etrusca, Lombardi, Manesseso and Nuovo Genova. Along with neighboring Siculia, it is one of two countries in the Americas that has a majority Italian-speaking population.

Cordova’s topography is dominated by the Roccioso (Rockies) mountain chain, which takes up roughly 75% of Cordova’s total territory. The relatively hilly North-eastern area dominates in terms of population and agricultural resources, and is the cultural and political center from which Cordova expanded in the 19th century following the conclusion of the Baliscan Civil Wars. The coast (called the Levante “the east”) is a labyrinth of steep fjords, inlets, twisting peninsulas, and islands. To the northeast, it is separated from Siculia by the Augustinian Sea (Mar Agostiniano or Il Agostino) and is bounded to the east by the Atlantic Ocean.

Originally, what is now Cordova was sparsely populated by several indigenous tribes. European exploration began with its discovery by Genoan explorer Carlo Archerio on June 28, 1502. Following several failed settlement attempts, the Genoans established Neapolis (“new city”) as the first permanent European settlement in modern Balisca. It quickly grew in size and population, and was elevated in status as the Viceroyalty of New Genoa (Nuovo Genova). Prior to the end of the Spanish War of Succession (which saw the split of Spain and Arriola), the Aranese Crown in the secret 1714 Treaty of Béziers handed sovereignty over Cordova to the Kingdom of Savoy to avoid ceding it to the Spanish. With the unification of Italy, large-scale immigration from the Italian states commenced. Cordova went on to form the nucleus of the Risveglio (the popular movement for independence and unification of the Baliscan states), later becoming one of the founding states of the unified Baliscan Confederation in 1810.

Government and politics
Cordova is a semi-presidential constitutional republic, with a bicameral legislature, the Cordovan Parliament (Il Parlamento). As stated in the Cordovan Constitution of 1952, the Prime Minister is elected President of Cordova is a ceremonial position and is elected by Parliament, for four years. The Parliament is made up of the Chamber of Representatives, with 212 representatives who are elected on block lists by proportional representation for four year terms, and the Senate, with 104 senators (five for each nome), who are directly elected by popular vote for five year terms

The current Prime Minister of Cordova is Xavier Martinello, from the right-wing Cordovan League (Lega Cordovano), who has been in office since 2 February 2014. The incumbent President of Aurora is Livio di Baio, who prior to his appointment was a member of the centrist Cordovan Movement (Movimento Cordovano).

The last congressional elections were held on 17 November 2014, concurrently with the presidential election. The current Senate has a 74–29 split in favor of the governing coalition and 1 independents. The current lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, contains 136 members of the governing right-wing coalition, 59 from the center-left opposition and 17 from small parties or independents. The Congress is located in the port city of San Marco, about 40 kilometers ( # miles) south of the capital, Basil.

Economy
The economy of Cordova ranks amongst the largest in Latin America. As of the first quarter of 2019, Aurora’s gross domestic product was estimated at US$1.4 Trillion, making it the second largest economy in the Baliscan Confederation. Cordova is responsible for ??% of Balisca’s economic activity. Cordova’s economy strongly benefits from high rates of worker participation, a highly educated population, low levels of corruption, and its well developed transpiration and telecommunication networks. However it continues to be negatively impacted by crime tied to the growing influence of the Siculian Mafia in recent years, along with a slump in global trade which Cordova is largely dependent on.

In 2019, Cordova alone was responsible for 30% of Balisca’s total trading activity. As a mainstay to the economy, the total value of trade conducted in Cordova was estimated to be well over 75% of the country’s GDP, making it one of the most trade dependent countries in the world. The Port of Alessandria is the largest in Latin America, and one of the largest and busiest in the world.

Per capita GDP in the first quarter 2019 was $00,000 ranking first in the nation. Cordova overall has an average poverty rate of 11.4%, one of the lowest rates in Latin America. There are substantial income disparities between urban population centers and rural communities, which worsened during the Great Recession. Adversely, Cordova has the highest levels of income inequality in Balisca, and in 2019 earned a GINI score of 40.9 (compared to the Baliscan average of 32.7).

The country is well known for its creative and innovative luxury businesses, and for its influential and high-quality automobile, machinery, food, design and fashion industry. Cordova maintains a large automotive industry and dominates the rest of Balisca in automobile production and sales, and is the world's # largest exporter of goods. Cordova is the world's # largest manufacturing country, with a significant concentration of global multinational corporations and a large number of dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises, notoriously clustered in several industrial districts, which are spread throughout the country.

Demographics
Cordova’s 2019 census reported a population of 28,289,849. Its rate of population growth has been the lowest in the Baliscan Confederation for the last decade, averaging 0.6% growth per year. If current trends continue, Cordova’s death rate will surpass its birth rate in 2022, leading to its first population decrease in its history. By 2050 the population of Cordova is expected to shrink to approximately # million people, to become the least populous country in the Confederation. About 90 percent of the country's population lives in urban areas, with 30 percent living in Metropolitan Alessandria.

At the Baliscan census of 2017, 78.7% of the people of Cordova claimed Cordovan nationality, and 95% declared that they speak Italian at home. At the 2012 census, 40.24% of the almost # million inhabitants of Cordova declared to be descendants of another single ancestry than Italian. That number includes 1.3 million who declared to be German as a national-ethnic identification (489,000 as single ethnicity and 1,200,000 a second ethnicity) and 700,000 Brazilians (575,000 as single ethnicity). Recognized minorities numbered around 9% of the population, including around 3 million Basques (2.4 million as a single ethnicity), while permanent foreign residents (those who have yet to be naturalized) number 2.4 million (around 5% out of Cordova’s total population). Among them, the largest group are Siculians, closely followed by Brazilians and Italians.

Cordova’s median life expectancy at birth is 82.1 years (83.3 for females, and 81.8 for males), which is the second highest in Balisca.

Ancestry and ethnicity
Cordova has long been both literally and figuratively the gateway into the Baliscan Confederation. It was the sole point of entrance for all emigrants entering the Baliscan Confederation from across the Atlantic Ocean from 1855 to 1946. Luogo di Colonna (meaning “place of columns”) was an entry center located in the harbor of Alessandria that processed and screened immigrants awaiting entry into the Baliscan Confederation. Between 1890 and 1930, 4.1 million people passed through its halls, and almost 2.8 million of those immigrants eventually settled in Cordova.

91% of all of Cordovans identified as European, with a further 82% reporting either full or partial Italian ancestry. This makes Cordova the most racially and ethnically homogenous country within the Baliscan Confederation. As of 2019, White Araucarians number # million, or just under #% of the Araucarian population, making them the smallest ethno-racial group in the Araucarian Republic.

Language
Italian is the official language of Cordova. It is the only language used by the Cordova government in the writing of laws, decrees and announcements. As of 2019, 93% of Cordovan residents responded that they primarily spoke Italian at home. The absence of the widespread multilingualism that is prevalent in other Baliscan regions is largely thanks to strict assimilation policies that discouraged the use of any languages besides Italian.

Several other Italic languages are spoken throughout Cordova. Most notably spoken are Neapolitan, Sardinian, Lombard, Corsican, and Franco-Provençal. Usage of these languages was discouraged significantly by the Cordovan government in favor of standard Italian in what was known as vergonga (“shame”) between 1828 and 1968. The 2002 Laws of Linguistics and the 2004 referendums reversed this policy, granting these languages constitutionally protected status as part of Cordova’s national heritage (“patrimonio nationale”).