Atlas Altera

The region least penetrable to Europeans was also a region tied up in myths, rumours of places spilling with silver, one of which was later confirmed true after the Spanish finally discovered the source of Peru's riches to be the Sumaq Urqu of Putusi. Spanish conquistadors were largely unsuccessful in claiming this region for their own. Even in the Viceroyalty of Rio del Plata, colonization was fragmented and the untamed marches assimilated settlers more so than they could imprint on the lands.

Today, Platinea's silver no longer fuels world trade, but the region continues to be a land of abundance. The region is rich in fisheries, guano, and minerals, and flocks of vicuna, guanaco, llama, and alpaca litter the countryside, from the High Andes to the cool steppes of the southern Chullinas. Moreover, native cultures remain vibrant not only in Peru, but also in the Pampas and the lush forests of Chile.

SOUTH CRUCEA

PLATINEA

MAP PLATES

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ON TOPONYMS

Ethnocentrism has always dogged geographers. Atlas Altera is written in English for those of the Anglosphere, who have generally inherited neighbouring European traditions. Here, countries and regions are rendered as if it is the tradition most familiar and accepted in practical usage by native English-speakers in Altera. Thus, the political map of Altera is rendered with exonyms, and the atlas draws deep from situated knowledges while simultaneously attempting to push the boundaries of those knowledges.

TYPES OF EXONYMS

The names of earth’s landmasses, continents, regions, and toponyms in Libya, Asea, and Erythrea were normalized by Venetian cartographers, who readily brought west maps of the south and east via their contact with the Grecians in Constantinople, a critical nexus point for trafficking things and knowledges across Borealea and Africa until the Age of Discovery. Toponyms of western continental Europea, generally corresponding to historically European Catholic areas, are derived from the naming conventions of the Dieppe school, which was influential until becoming eclipsed by the mapmakers of Antwerp. The Antwerp School made places of the Arctic and Norway known to the rest of Europea. Thus, the -ny, -land, and -ia suffixes generally correspond to these three schools of cartography influential to the English tradition.

The Dieppe School also began to incorporate the less systemic toponyms of the Spanish and Portuguese, which came out of early conquests in Septentrea and Crucea, most of which broke from the practice of naming places after native inhabitants but instead came from the Doctrine of Discovery. The Antwerp School fully normalized the practice of transliterating foreign toponyms through the lens of the regional hegemons in places where there was closer power parity between Europeans and natives, especially in Indea, Serica, and in the parts of Septentrea and Crucea that retained autonomy. The transliterations made in this time preserve the local pronunciations in the 18th and 19th centuries and may now be quite distant to the modern endonyms.

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