Great start! Love what you did with the map. I'm looking forward to learning more about this country. I also like that you created a separate thread just for country details. I may have to do that with Torland. I've been wanting to make a Wiki but it's been so time consuming.

The flag looks fantastic as well!

Next stop on our tour is Roosevelt, the province surrounding Shinkyō. 
Fast Facts:
Japanese Name:「ルセベルト州」(Ruseberuto-shuu, lit. "Roosevelt State")
Capital: Yosemite
2020 Population: 6.6 million
Color: Red (Hex #F0464E)
Bird: Sandhill Crane
Flower: Rose
Major Cities: San Juan, Hokuseikyō
Industry: Agriculture, Mining, Tourism, Service
Comparable States: Alberta, Colorado
Flag:

History:
Roosevelt is one of the older provinces, formed in the early 1900s while Teddy Roosevelt was President, thus named after him. The city that originally served as capital was San Juan, named after T.R.'s famous Rough Riders and their heroics in Cuba. However, when Shinkyō was founded, federal officials wanted Roosevelt to move the capital to avoid political conflict, and the small town of Yosemite in the north of the province was chosen. The province was long been of the "blue-collar, rough-and-tumble" type, and it shows in the cities and their citizens. 

Symbols:
Roosevelt takes its color from the clay found in the soil when mining, and selected the sandhill crane as the province bird, representing their American heritage and the strong bonds formed by Roosevelt citizens and sandhill cranes. The flower is a rose, selected to match the red color already selected. The flag takes the form of a clay red base with a stylized "R", modified to somewhat resemble「ル」, the first character of Roosevelt's Japanese name. 

Cities:
Yosemite:
Japanese Name:「ヨセミティ市」(Yosemiti-shi, lit. "Yosemite City")
2020 Population: 1.3 million
Similar Cities: Austin, Edmonton
Yosemite, despite being the capital, is the smallest major city in Roosevelt and is the 9th largest overall. It was a small town before being selected as the provincial capital and it boomed from there. The city still retains its mining roots, with the famous red clay found all over, including Yosemite's world-famous red clay brick government buildings. The city adores baseball and football, to the point where civic holidays are celebrated on days where those two teams are competing for something big. The city purposefully developed a culture of anti-modernism, relying on mined coal and old technology, much to the chagrin of the federal government and Columbia, Roosevelt's green northern neighbor. Provincial officials support the actions as small ways to get back at the federal government, but some concerned citizens have been protesting the actions since the early 2000s.
San Juan:
Japanese Name:「サン・フアン市」(San Huan-shi, lit. "San Juan City")
2020 Population: 2.8 million
Similar Cities: Newark, Arlington, Yokohama
San Juan is the old capital of Roosevelt and the largest city in the province, and the 4th largest in the country. It now serves as once of two cities competing for foreign and domestic tourism to the capital, along with Hokuseikyō. The economy has been built on the back of cheap service, shopping, and hotels for both Shinkyō and San Juan itself. The culture in San Juan was been compared to Shinkyō, and for good reason. The city has some of the most Michelin stars of any city on the globe, fourth only to Tokyo, Osaka, and Paris. Some government officials take up residence in San Juan for cheaper transport and services, although many take day trips just for the food. San Juan has a passion for football, but soccer is the city's true sports love, with multiple teams in each tier of association soccer in Robin Island. 
Hokuseikyō:
Japanese Name:「北西京市」(Hokuseikyou-shi, lit. "Northwest Capital City")
2020 Population: 2.5 million
Similar Cities: Chiba, Baltimore
Despite the name, Hokuseikyō has never been the capital of the province of Roosevelt, but was simply renamed when Shinkyō was created to capitalize on the population explosion in the area. Hokuseikyō has a tight bond with Kokyō, with both seeming inferior to their "older brothers", but Hokuseikyō is an excellent city in its own right and is one of the most ecologically progressive cities in the world. The city takes major pride in this and has become a popular destination for environmental conferences. This, of course, puts it at odds with the gas-guzzling, coal-spewing Yosemite, a fight that often forces the federal government to step in. No one sport dominates Hokuseikyō's culture, but football is notably less popular in the city than in the rest of Roosevelt.

Conclusion:
Roosevelt presents itself as a blue-collar, for-the-people province, but deep analysis of the province and its habits prove that it's transformed into an elite hub servicing Shinkyō and leading both the fight for and against environmental protections. This dichotomy has made Roosevelt one of the most interesting places in Robin Island to live and even observe from the outside. 

(Editor's Note: There we go! Roosevelt is done. This took me like 45 minutes to write up and I think it payed off. The fight between San Juan and Hokuseikyō for Shinkyō tourism is both funny to me and something that I think helps ground the story of this country. It's natural that two cities would compete for that kind of thing, right? I can't really think of direct inspirations for these cities, although San Juan's foodie kick is based on Tokyo's massive number of Michelin stars (seriously, it's so many). Roosevelt is the third-most populous province, making it pretty important. Roosevelt is one of 7 original names that survived the revisions I made to Robin Island, and is the only province where the capital isn't the most populous city. While that's common in the US, it's not in Japan, so I wanted to strike a realistic balance and having the capital be a small town that was selected by "chance" seemed like a good story. What do you think? Any questions? C&C welcome!)

Last edited by QCS (4/24/2020 10:03 pm)

CCLXXXVII wrote:

Dang, I don't know why this flew under my radar, but this looks great!

I really like how you've managed to blend both American and Japanese culture together. Really intriguing. Is this a setup for a future league?

Yep! When I've finished going through all 14 provinces I'll start posting some fantasy sports. I wanted to have this as a sort of wiki to refer back to when explaining cities in the sports leagues.

3pointtally wrote:

This is very cool. What did you use to generate the map?

I used Photoshop, following a tutorial called the Saderan tutorial. Steelman is the guy to go for this, I got all of my resources from him and he provided some invaluable advice when I was making my map.