Borders within the blocs

The blocs did not keep the map of 2026. Some old borders survive as lines between states or provinces; others were erased when countries joined, and a few new ones were drawn. This chapter lists each change and its date. The map of Earth follows it.

Canon means the bible already says so. By reading means the date or reason is new here.

Before the blocs

The Mandate

The Mandate draws provinces around rivers and supply lines, not old nations. Water is its strongest lever (see Why it holds together, in The Mandate), and its Vaults forecast water and unrest province by province. Large countries stay whole; small ones are joined around a river or a coast. China is governed as one heartland.

Kept whole: Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Sumatra and Java, Sri Lanka, and the corridor from Gilgit to Gwadar. Abkhazia, South Ossetia and occupied eastern Ukraine are held, not redrawn.

The Settlement

The Settlement changes borders only by consent. Old nations live on as states inside their compacts, and their borders become state lines. Very small states joined a neighbour, because a member must run its own Threshold, Chamber, courts and schools. A few old hopes of union came true.

Everywhere else in the Settlement, the 2026 borders stay as state lines. The Falklands and South Georgia stay British, and join the Settlement with the United Kingdom.

The Parishad

The Parishad draws its states by language, as India did in 1956. When a language group asks, the parliament votes on a new line, and if the Lok Sabha splits, the Vault casts the deciding vote (see How it governs, in The Parishad). Old nations live on as states unless they merge. Polities such as The Ganga Compact are groups of states and draw no line of their own. The Indus Line is a frontier between blocs, not a border within one.

Kept: Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Everywhere else in the Parishad, the 2026 borders stay as state lines.

The Open Cities

In The Open Cities, borders are bought, not drawn. Cities buy, sell and merge land by vote, and money wins most votes. A league is a union of cities that owns land together; each city still governs itself.

The five leagues: the Pacific (Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii, and Alaska); the Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming); Texas and the Gulf (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama); the Middle (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa and the Plains states); the Atlantic (New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and south to Florida and Tennessee).

Kept: Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile north of Patagonia. St Pierre and Miquelon stays French, in the Settlement. Until they are sold, Europe's islands and French Guiana stay with their European owners. The Dutch islands are in the Settlement by then; Britain and France have not yet joined it. Everywhere else in the Open Cities, the 2026 borders stay.