Could a fantasy world have more than thousands of nations/communities?

[Miaristan]

Hi,

I ask this question because I have plenty of worldbuilding ideas for my project, and one of these ideas would be to create a fictional world and imagine what would happen if instead having about 200 nations, our world had more than thousands nations and communities. The idea I had was to imagine a world like the ours, but divided between several communities and regions centred on specific places (Los Angeles, Leicester, Tokyo, etc.).

I read somewhere, especially on Reddit, that a world with more than several thousands of nations would be technically plausible and believable, especially since there were eras in the human history when there were decentralized/tribal communities, and what I would want to do is to create thousands of communities that would be decentralized and would have their peculiar customs, traditions, and laws, instead of being united into huge sovereign states.

I also know that developing and describing every place in a fantasy world is not necessarily required and that creators can be focused primarily on the places that occupy the most important places in the story.

I also had the idea that my fantasy world would be less focused on peoples from different communities and more on some groups of humans who would compete to take over the control of the maximum of nations and communities.

I would be interested to have your opinions.

Thanks you, and have a good night!

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Sure, your world could have many thousands of nations and communities, but there's never room in a story to mention them all. If you did that, your book would be just a long, boring list of nations, with no story.

 

[MrNybble]

Considering the basis is not limited to a single world, you can do millions, billions or even trillions of nations/communities. Covering a galaxy or universe makes the number limitless.

 

[Miles Lacey]

The Holy Roman Empire had an estimated 1800 states in the 18th Century so having a world with thousands of nations is totally feasible. However, you will need to think of why there are so many nations and how do they survive. In my work in progress there are thousands of nations but many of them are protectorates, nations in free association with other nations, city-states, neutral zones, international zones, tribal areas that are designated as "undefined states" (that is, they have neither any formal type of government nor set borders) and communes - to name but a few.

 

[Mad Swede]

The Holy Roman Empire had an estimated 1800 states in the 18th Century so having a world with thousands of nations is totally feasible. However, you will need to think of why there are so many nations and how do they survive. In my work in progress there are thousands of nations but many of them are protectorates, nations in free association with other nations, city-states, neutral zones, international zones, tribal areas that are designated as "undefined states" (that is, they have neither any formal type of government nor set borders) and communes - to name but a few.

As Miles writes, the Holy Roman Empire is a good historical example and traces of this survived into the later German Empire and the Weimar Republic. To add to what he wrote, one thing things that sometimes isn't understood is that the various states and city states had a sort of hierarchy within the Empire and the Republic, where some had more influence and power than others. This would presumably be the case in your setting, and you'd need to work out what that hierarchy is, how it came to exist and how it influences things like politics, commerce, law enforcement etc.

 

[Ned Marcus]

It sounds entirely plausible to me. City states and tribal areas (which could be seen as nations) have existed throughout history. I find this approach interesting in a story world, although I've also read some good stories with only a handful of nations, too.

If you choose to go this way, it could give you a richness of worldbuilding opportunities.

 

[Puck]

Historically the concept of a 'nation' is something that only really takes shape in the form that we know it today from around the C15th onwards. Medieval Europe was a patchwork of Dukedoms and Kingdoms that were bound together (in many cases) only by the King to which your feudal lord owed allegiance.

England had an identity in terms of culture and language (up to a point - in the early middle ages the ruling elite spoke French as their first language & even saw themselves as being just as much French as English). But England formed part of a Plantagenet Empire that also included parts of France (especially Gascony).

The hundred years war was, in effect, more of a war between the Plantagenet and Valois families, than it was a war between French and English. (Although it evolved into a war between French and English by the end).

Ancient Greece consisted of many city states as did their Phoenician rivals. Also look at Italy for much of the middle ages - hopelessly divided into states that were, at times, bitter rivals.

For any medieval or ancient civilisation the concept of numerous petty city states and small dukedoms is perfectly plausible and, to some extent, reflects real history more accurately than the idea of large, cohesive, nation states.

 

[skip.knox]

Short answer: yes. There, our job is done.
Your job is to make it believable. <grin>

 

[Nighty_Knight]

Easily if you break it down enough. Look how different just Boston, New York, Philly, and Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire are. And they are pretty close to each other. Now imagine if the whole world broke down into city states. Look how many City state nations you could get out of a small modern country.