Fantasy Counterpart Culture / Literature

• A Song of Ice and Fire

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Examples by author:

• Most of Guy Gavriel Kay's books make heavy use of this trope, and are centered in a counterpart to a specific region of Europe:
  • Tigana: medieval Italy
  • A Song for Arbonne: medieval France, especially Provence
  • Under Heaven: China during the Tang dynasty.
    • Its sequel River of Stars: China during the Song dynasty.
  • Most of his fantasy novels take place in the same world. In rough chronological order:
    • The Sarantine Mosaic: the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Justinian, with some scenes set in an equivalent of the Sassanid Empire just prior to the rise of Islam
    • The Last Light of the Sun: Viking Age Scandinavia, Wales and England, around the reign of Alfred the Great.
    • The Lions of Al-Rassan: Spain during the Reconquista
    • A Brightness Long Ago: Renaissance Italy around the time Constantinople fell.
    • All the Seas of the World: The Mediterranean a few years after Constantinople's fall.
    • Children of Earth and Sky: takes place across the same area as The Sarantine Mosaic, with thinly-veiled versions of the Republic of Venice, Ragusa, the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire shortly after the fall of Constantinople.
    • The Fantasy World Map also points to the outlying nations of "Anglycyn" and "Moskav"

Examples by work:

• The Afterward: Giran's people seem to be like bedouin Arabs, with their being somewhat nomadic, using camels and head coverings. She always wears a headscarf while in public, with light brown skin and black hair, which are common among Arabs.
• Alexis Carew: Justified by the second-wave Earth colonies having been settled by individual nations, instead of trying for melting pots as happened in the first-wave colonies only for them to instead fall apart in sectarian warfare.
  • New London is the simplest one, essentially early 1800s Britain, complete with tons of colonies where they tend to dump people with troublesome ideas rather than tolerate, reeducate, or fight them.
  • The Republic of Hanover is a stand-in for Napoleonic France in the Horatio Hornblower Verse, but culturally has more in common with Bismarckian Prussia and Nazi Germany (culturally and linguistically German, with a manifest destiny attitude towards rulership of mankind), with a dose of the Soviet Union.
  • The Grand Republic of France Among the Stars (the French Republic for short) is essentially the French Third Republic with the stylings of the Bourbon monarchy (with bureaucrats and civil servants standing in for the nobility in the ballroom). They also take historical cues from the pre-World War II United States, friendly with New London and opposed to Hanover, but militarily neutral.
  • There is also a second Space Germany, Deutschstirne, which Hanover bloodily broke away from centuries ago in a war that led to the passage of the Abbentheren Accords to govern interstellar warfare. Hso-Hsi, Space China from the sound of it, has so far only been briefly mentioned by name.
• In Patrick Tilley's Amtrak Wars, the Mutes are clearly First Nations while the Iron Masters are basically Steampunk Samurai.
• Arc of Fire: Kajin is one for China, going by the names of its people and customs like using chop sticks. It even has the equivalent of Buddhist monks. It seems probable Mohender Gosh's home country is one of India, judging by his name and culture.
• Bazil Broketail:
  • The Teetol are a tribal people who seem similar to Native Americans with their names, specifically like the Iroquois since men have their heads shaved except for top knots while having a strong honor-bound warrior culture, plus they live in lodges (however Iroquois women had much greater status).
  • Baguti are horse-riding nomads who resemble the Mongols somewhat, also being proud warriors.
  • Ourdh is an ancient empire which has strong Middle Eastern influences in customs and clothing. High male officials wear turbans, with women wearing concealing veils and head coverings. Many ziggurats are there too. Gingo-La, an Ourdhi goddess, is also described like Kali from Hinduism with her death aspect.
• In The Belgariad, there are a number of separate races who came under the influence of particular gods who moulded them one way or another (and, it is implied, not just culturally, going by the physical influence Aldur's patronage has on his disciples). Each has a number of subdivisions.
  • The Alorns are primarily Western/Northern European:
    • The Chereks, 'the elemental Alorns', are stereotypical Horny Vikings, down to the sailing, predilection for piracy, and habit of going berserk at a moment's notice.
    • The Rivans, dully dressed and reserved inhabitants (but far more colourful and open once you get to know them) of a relatively small and extremely wet island heavily populated by sheep, who are protected by a powerful navy (albeit one that doesn't belong to them), and are relatively reluctant to trade/interact with others, heavily resemble the British, particularly Wales (the sheep and the rain being key points). The fact that they've got a giant magical sword heavily associated with stones that can only be wielded by the Chosen One, their long lost King (who they've been patiently awaiting for a good 1500 years), only underlines the point.
    • The Drasnians resemble a mixture of 16th/17th century Dutch merchants, with a side of inhabitants of the Swiss and the Italian city-states from the same era - sometimes flamboyant, obsessed with making money, with very disciplined infantry troops, living by giant fens — mixed with a bit of the Finnish, considering that the North of their country goes straight to the pole and is largely inhabited by reindeer.
    • The Algars are more like Scythians, Sarmatians, and the Magyars, being nomadic livestock herders and horsemen who exploit their speed and horsemanship across the great plains of their home to serve as peerless light cavalry and lancers.
  • The Arends, primarily drawn from Anglo-French archetypes, with a touch of Medieval/Renaissance Spain (particularly following the union of Aragon and Castile, two kingdoms which were technically governed separately and whose monarchs were prone to marrying their cousins), and widely stereotyped as Medieval Morons and epitomising Honour Before Reason.
    • The Mimbrates are all parodies (some more affectionate than others) of Anglo-Norman/Castilian knights from chivalric epics, prone to florid language in the form of Flowery Elizabethan English (the series being one of the few to stunningly avert Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe), obsessed with their honour to the point of having meaningless wars over forgotten insults and endless contests of courtesy, as well as a national tendency to be the Drama Queen.
    • The Asturians are closer to the displaced Anglo-Saxon/Aragonese/Catalonian nobility, and speak much more contemporary language. They're also peerless longbowmen, prone to guerrilla warfare and/or petty banditry in the style of Robin Hood. However, they're not that different from the Mimbrates, particularly in their obsession with honour and their treatment of their serfs (i.e. barely recognising that they're human).
    • The Wacites, long gone (the survivors ended up absorbed by the above states, or in Erat/Sendaria), are a bit more ambiguous, but might have been based on the Kingdom of Galicia and/or Navarre, which were respectively swallowed up by Castile and Aragon. Alternatively, they might have been a stand-in for the Welsh and Irish, owing to a major emphasis on music in the few snapshots we get of their culture, the exaggerated Irish brogue their commoners used, and how they were swallowed up by the Asturians (a.k.a. the English, who were later swallowed up by the Mimbrates/Normans).
  • The Tolnedrans are essentially the Byzantine Empire, albeit with the military aesthetic of the late Roman Republic/early Roman Empire — a relatively small Empire that punches above its weight through an extremely well-trained army, canny diplomacy, and raw economic power, being a Proud Merchant Race that rather looks down on foreigners. It also serves as an intermediary between two major opposing forces (the Alorns and the Murgos), and is mistrusted by the former.
  • The Sendars are a mix of all of the above, though they lean Alorn, and resemble the hard-working, practical, inventive, hospitable (and in some respects) pious Midwestern US/rural England.
  • The Marags are largely extinct, but in aesthetics and the emphasis on athletics for the men, plus being slaughtered by the Tolnedrans, they're probably at least partially a stand-in for the Ancient Greeks.
  • The Angaraks are initially stereotyped as Always Chaotic Evil, though it transpires that they're mostly normal people and have the misfortune to have had Torak as their god, with an active and magically powered hereditary priesthood, the Grolims, that indulges in regular human sacrifice.
    • The Murgos are the former warrior aristocracy, retain that in their culture, indulge in ritual scarification (albeit enforced by their priests) which resembles Germanic duelling scars, and are polygamists who are fanatical about sequestering their women. In the first series, they come across as an Always Chaotic Evil version of the Ottoman Turks with a touch of the later Islamic Mongols, but in the second, when ruled by a sane King and the protagonists actually enter the country, many of the Murgo characters we meet are no worse than any of the other races.
    • The Grolims are a sub-caste of the Murgos, and tap into more or less every evil pagan priest stereotype, starting at human sacrifice and going from there.
    • The Thulls are an In-Universe Butt-Monkey, being not overly bright (originally purely physical labourers, and bred for brawn rather than brain), they're the primary targets of the Grolims. They don't really have a direct counterpart.
    • The Nadraks are a mirrored version of the Drasnians, the most secular Angaraks, and a Proud Merchant Race in their own right, who consequently tend to get on best with the Alorns, resembling Western Russia and the Balkan states under the Ottomans (discreetly trying to get some independence and escape).
    • The Malloreans are much more secular, and resemble a mixture of Ancient Rome, Ancient China, and the Alexandrian Empire, even with a Young Conqueror as one of its earlier Emperors, and later Emperors noted as having had trouble with the Melcene Empire, a Chinese styled and very secular state largely ruled by university educated bureaucrats and armed with war-elephants from a region called 'Gandahar'. Like both (particularly the latter), it is also prone to splintering into its constituent parts if left to its own devices for too long.
  • The Unchosen Peoples, the ones not chosen by any god, vaguely resembles the Jews, particularly the Lost Tribes.
    • The Ulgos, who ended up chosen by Ul after the first Gorim (high priest chosen at birth by Ul) very patiently and carefully bullied him into it. Ul being the Top God and having been a wandering people who are now extremely reclusive, rather religious, and with their own holy language, they most closely resembles the Jews.
    • The Morindim, demon-worshippers since they couldn't find a god of their own, tribal and shamanistic, resemble the Arctic Siberian tribes. The Karands, also demon-worshippers, managed to establish several states of their own, and the non-fanatical ones mostly resemble rural Americans (right down to a relaxed rural drawl).
    • The Melcenes are very secular and closely resemble Ancient China in their bureaucratic rule, university education, and economic management.
    • The Dals, a very strange Proud Scholar Race of seers, have an obsession with star-gazing and ancient history of incredible advancement (that is ignored/disbelieved by the other races) that's reminiscent of ancient Babylonians, mixed in with the Jews (having had a metaphorical sign saying 'kick me' hung around their necks for most of the backstory).
• In Bio of a Space Tyrant by Piers Anthony, the Earth nations have colonized the Solar System. North and South Jupiter were colonised by North/South America, respectively; Mars by Arab nations; Saturn by Asia; Uranus by Europe etc. They develop Hyperspace travel and plan to colonize the Galaxy by constellations: USA get the Eagle, Russia gets the Bear, China gets the Dragon.
• The Black Company starts light while the Company is in the north, then runs with this trope when they get to Taglios. Gunni are copy-and-paste Hindus, Vehdna are close to Muslim, and the whole pluralistic, pacifistic culture is what could have happened if the two religions and smaller sects had to join together or die. Painfully. In the name of a demon-eating goddess their gods are afraid of. Even later on, Hsien (China) gets tossed in there, too.
• The Book of Dragons: "Habitat" straddles the line between this and a fantasized version of the real Middle Ages. The protagonist's home country is based on medieval England, while Outremer is split between a nation very like the Byzantine Empire and its distinctly Arabic foes.
• Viron from Book of the Long Sun is vaguely "Latin", with the city's ruler being called "Calde" and the state religion being a parody of Catholicism (with some minor details changed: it's a polytheist Catholicism that practices animal (and occasionally human) sacrifice. The rival city of Trivigaunt is a matriarchical fundamentalist Arabia. Both of these are justified in the story the builders of the Generation Ship wanted to send a range of human cultures into the universe, all of which would worship the Monarch and his family as gods.
• The Commonwealth in Book of the New Sun is modeled on the Byzantine empire, but very obviously set in South America, with references to mate and pampas, as well as a stand-in for Lake Titicaca.
• The Bridge Kingdom Archives has the kingdom of Maridrina, which is loosely based on Arabic caliphates, with their harems, general disregard for women and treating them as property of their fathers and later husbands. Also, it is not proper for a woman to be alone with a man who is not a member of her family. Geographically, most of the land is barren desert, which can only be crossed by caravans with camels and the kingdom is constantly fighting with its neighbour Valcotta over a thin strip of fertile land on the coast.
• The Brightest Shadow: Heavily downplayed. Though many of the cultures have clear Asian inspiration, they rarely match any real culture for more than a few elements.
• The Burning Kingdoms: The setting is clearly based on ancient India, with the clothing, food and types of buildings directly from the Indian culture, along with some Hindu spirituality.
• In The Carpet People, the Dumii are clearly the Roman Empire.
• Children of Mother Earth has the attacking nation of "Baden", which is creepily similar to Nazi Germany.
• The Chronicles of Amber claims that every world in existence exists in Shadow, as a reflection of the True World, Amber. Hence, several cultures of Earth are pointed out to be reflections of some part of Amber (and several famous historical figures are said to have been trained by the long-lived Amberites).
• The Chronicles of Dorsa:
  • The Terintan desert nomads like Joslyn look like East Asians or possibly Native Americans. She also mentions beliefs in the elements' influence on people similar to traditional ones of China, along with having Coyote (a commonly occurring god in Native American religions) as their main deity, who's a trickster like him. Some aspects of their clothing and food also seems to be inspired from Arabs.
  • The tinkers, wanderers that fix things, are fortune tellers and trade. Given the description, they sound like the Roma or Irish Travellers given those occupations are shared by them. A few also are described as dishonest, faking being poor for money from generous passersby when they beg, activity like the kind stereotypically ascribed to Roma and Travellers.
• The titular culture of Chronicles of the Kencyrath has a lot of Jewish parallels, being the Chosen People of a very strict God who have Temples and Books of Law; furthermore, they're exiles and nomads. Their religion emphasizes obedience to the Law over faith, and their God isn't all that nice. A number of Kencyr have Hebrew-influenced names, the protagonist among them (Jamethiel, with the Hebrew -el "of God" ending). Aspects of their culture, though, have other influences; their honor code and ritual suicide traditions, and martial arts have some Japanese parallels, while the segregation and hiding behind masks of Highborn women draws comparison to Islam.
• Chronicles of Magic has the Falians, or "people of Fa" — a country a lot like ancient Japan whose inhabitants are beautiful, dark-skinned people with snow-white hair and ruby-red eyes.
• Calormen from The Chronicles of Narnia is Middle Eastern with Ottoman/Turkish influences, with a specific takeoff on the ancient Carthaginian religion as a plot point. Notably, the Calormenes are explicitly pagan, not monotheists — their religion is not a fantasy counterpart of Islam. The Calormen, like the Archenlanders, are descendants of of the original King and Queen of Narnia.
• Circle of Magic:
  • Imagine Tris as an English girl. Good luck imagining her habitual snark in anything other than an upper-class British accent. Emelan itself is probably based more on Italy than England, given its Mediterranean climate, focus on trade, and diverse population (Italy having handy trade routes with Africa and the Middle East).
  • The Yanjing Empire is definitely based on ancient China, and the Namorn Empire is based on Russia. Also, the city-state of Tharios has a government like Ancient Grome, while the caste system there is based on Japan, with the yaskedasi (entertainers) similar to the geisha of Japan and the prathmuni based on the burakumin. The food and weather that Emelan and some of its neighboring countries have is Mediterranean, and Chammur is more Middle Eastern/Arabic.
  • The Traders seem to have a lot of similarities with the Romani (nomadic people that are quite separated from other cultures as a defense against huge amounts of discrimination, etc).
• In The Cinder Spires, humanity lives in towering arcologies called "spires". The main setting is Spire Albion, a constitutional monarchy and major naval power where all the characters have distinctly British names and are fond of tea. Spire Albion's archrival, Spire Aurora, appears to be based on the Spanish Empire.
• The Citizen Series: The Cutter Stream is late colonial America (specifically the mid-Atlantic states beginning around the time of the French and Indian War), sparsely populated and featuring Merchant Prince-style social stratification. The Riders are Space Nomads that stand in for the Native Americans. In theory Brasilia and Terra represent respectively Hanoverian Britain and Bourbon France but they're essentially interchangeable (the only major distinction is that the Cutter Stream was colonized from Brasilia).
• In Codex Alera, the Aleran society is based on ancient Rome, using Roman terminology, system of government, and military structure. It turns out that there's a reason for this: they actually are descendants of a Lost Roman Legion that ended up falling through a Negative Space Wedgie that transported them to Alera, although this point is not mentioned much in the books. Despite this, Aleran society has notable differences from actual Roman society, primarily in that their military is even more professional and organized than historical Roman armies, and there's an absence of real religion in Aleran society. Also, thanks to the Elemental Powers that all the Alerans possess, they have Magitek that allows them a standard of living comparable to the 1950's. However, like the Roman Empire, Alera's biggest problems are not external threats but their own crippling internal problems.
• In the Conan the Barbarian stories, the countries of the Hyborian Age are transparent stand-ins for real-world nations or peoples. Examples include Stygia as a stand-in for Egypt, Shem as Israel, Aquilonia as Medieval France, and Iranistan as... well, guess. (Note, however, that these are supposedly nations that existed in the history of our own Earth, pre-continental drift theory and pre-mass migrational theory, so the similarities to the civilizations that they would eventually evolve into is doubtlessly intentional.) His favorite grey-eyed morose heroes are all supposed to be ancestors of modern Celts. A folk etymology for Cymru (Wales) is attributed to the Cimmerians (Conan's people) while the name Conan is Irish. If you look at the map of the Hyborian Age◊, this becomes even more obvious. Aquilonia is about where France is, Cimmeria is where Scotland will someday be etc. Howard in fact wrote a history in which the beginning of modern European and Middle Eastern races are set out. So:
  • Nordheimer: Norses.
  • Picts: Amerindians.
  • Cimmerians: Celts.
  • Hyborians: Western Europeans.
  • Zingarans: Spanish.
  • Shemites: Arabs.
  • Stygians: Egyptians.
  • Kushites: Ethiopians.
  • Darfari: Africans.
  • Zamorans: Gypsies.
  • Hyrkanians: Mongols.
  • Himelians: Afghans.
  • Vendhyans: Indians.
  • Khitans: Chinese.
• The Cosmere:
  • Elantris features several Fantasy Counterpart Cultures, though there's a bit of mix-and-matching going on. The Fjordell Empire occupies a political position similar to Rome, but is culturally and linguistically more Nordic, with a religion that seems equal parts Islamic and Catholic. The nation of Teod (of which one main protagonist is princess) is very obviously England- a small island that is nonetheless regarded as a great power due to its very impressive navy and canny leadership. The nation of Jindo, mentioned often but never seen, seems to be a stand in for medieval China. The nations of Duladel and Arelon, on the other hand, don't really seem to have any real-life counterparts.
  • The Alloy of Law has the Roughs, which are an equivalent of 19th century The Wild West. There are small towns inhabited by people who've had enough of city life (and laws of civilized societies), lawkeepers who hunt bandits for bounties, and savage koloss as a fantasy equivalent of Native American tribes. Even fashion is very Wild West-like, with long dusters and hats. Elendel itself is more like London at the height of British imperialism.
  • Per Word of God, Scadrial, where all the Mistborn books are set, is intended as this as a whole. Everything is as close to Earth-like as possible. Gravity, environment, and time are all the same. Technology mostly matches up with real-world progression (though the Final Empire caused more than a little Schizo Tech), and cultural attitudes are the same. There's lots of people with names that wouldn't sound too out of place in our world - for example, Hammond, Wayne, Jon, or Miles. The Survivorist religion parallels Christianity very closely, the primary difference being that they believe their martyr became divine after death rather than before.
  • Warbreaker: Hallandren has a number of similarities to India, most obvious in their dye exports and religion that other countries find weird at best and heresy at worst. Per Word of God, the setting originally came about in order to write a book set in one of those "far-off lands" in most fantasy books where the exotic goods come from.
  • The Stormlight Archive:
    • Most of Eastern Roshar in general is inspired by Asian cultures, but only in general terms. Fashions are similar, and their strong caste system brings to mind the old Asian cultures, but little more than that. Interestingly, all eastern Rosharans have Asian epicanthic folds (the "narrow eyes"), though other than that their races don't resemble Asians at all.
    • Funnily enough, the people of Shinovar look mostly European (since they lack the epicanthic folds and generally have lighter skin tones) and live in the only area of the continent with normal plants and animals, but their culture resembles Buddhism crossed with Shinto animism.
    • The Herdazians resemble Hispanic cultures, as they are a minority everywhere, have their own neighborhoods and slang, and are generally ignored by everyone else. Some readers also associated them with Jews, since a number of the above stereotypes apply there as well, and fit the Jewish Mother stereotype (which many people could say fits with Hispanic Stereyotpes as well), although they aren't known for any association with money. Word of God seems to indicate the former was intended.
• The author of The Course of Empire and The Crucible of Empire claims to be consciously writing an analogue to Rome conquering then being assimilated by Greeks with the Jao as Romans and the Humans as Greeks.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses: Prythian and Hybern are loosely based upon the British Isles. The bigger island containing Prythian and the Mortal Lands resembles Britain in shape and size; Hybern, the slightly smaller island located to the west of Prythian, resembles Ireland. Prythian appears to be a portmanteau of Prydain (the old Welsh name for Britain) and Brython (Welsh for Briton). Hibernia is the Latin name for Ireland. The whole history with Prythian and Hybern warring for centuries is similar to the real-world conflict between Ireland and Britain, although weirdly it's the Ireland-counterpart who keep trying to invade the Britain-counterpart; anyone who is remotely familiar with the history of the British Isles will tell you it was the other way around in real life.
• The Five Kingdoms in The Coward by Stephen Aryan are generally Arabic, most likely a counterpart for al-Andalus in Iberia and intermingling with Christian traditions. The coinage is in dinars, European style bards play the Arabic oud, and people smoke hookahs, while pale blonde people live on a nearby continent. There's even a mountain Barbarian Tribe of horse warriors who may stand in for the Visigoths as much as the Mongols or Huns. The religion is similar to Islam but has the political structure of medieval Christianity, though led by women, and the holy city being a separate kingdom to itself is similar to Cordoba in later Moorish Iberia. (It's also probably a nod to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros; both settings have places called the Narrow Sea and the Summer Isles.)
• The Crescent Moon Kingdoms:
  • Abassen, the caliphate (khalifate?) in which the book takes place is patterned off of the Middle East (the name is taken from the Abbasids). The city of Dhamsawaat in particular is clearly inspired by the mythical Baghdad of the Arabian Nights fame.
  • The Badawi are analogous to Bedouins. "Badawi" is the singular Arabic for nomad; "bedouin" is the anglicization. The region in which they live, the Empty Kingdom, might be a reference to the Empty Quarter.
  • The Soo Republic stands in for Darkest Africa. Not enough information is given to determine which specific parts of Africa. However, if the map is similar to Earth it might be East Africa ("Soo" could echo Sudan, though two large rivers are mentioned in their country).
  • Rughal-ba is probably India under Moghul rule, though it's not yet known if there is anything analogous to Hindu India. This is reinforced by the name of the capital, Tamajal, which is similar to Taj Mahal.
  • The War Lands to the north probably stands in for Europe. The sole named region is Braxony, a possible portmanteau between Brittany and Saxony, both in Western Europe (though not connected).
  • The Kem empire is one for ancient Egypt, complete with Pharaohs.
• The Crimson Shadow:
  • Eriador is pretty clearly a parallel for Scotland, with one of its famed heroes being Bruce MacDonald, who has the city Caer MacDonald named after him.
  • Avon stands in for England, with cities such as Newcastle and Carlisle which match actual English cities' names.
  • Gascony is a clear parallel to France, not only with the pseudo-French names and having the name of a historical French province, but also its history in regards to people from there having invaded Avon (England) in the past.
  • All three also share the same relative locations.
  • An island near both may be the stand in for Ireland, though we don't get much information on it.
  • Isenland stands in for Iceland, with its people being raiders like the vikings.
• While The Hundred, the central culture in Kate Eliott's Crossroads trilogy, doesn't seem to be based on any particular culture the Sirniakan Empire is very similar to the Ottoman Empire, and the Qin are very Mongolish with some Japanese samurai added in while the towns of the Golden Road they conquered seems very Chinese and the Silvers are reminiscent of Jews.
  • The Hundred has a lot of Pacific Islander influence.
  • Speaking of Kate Eliot, her epic Crown of Stars series is basically a What If? Europe, with a viking culture made up of Lizardmen, amongst other differences. Two particularly interesting facets, Daisanite Church has a female pontiff called a Skopos (Greek for purpose) and that the British Isles expy is ruled by powerful Druidic witches.
  • In general, the biggest difference between the world of Crown of Stars and Earth's medieval period is that it's much more, for lack of a better word, female-friendly in general- almost all cultures are either gender-equal (with men still holding the bulk of military power, but women dominating religious roles and political leadership open to either) or matriarchal, and the one completely patriarchal nation doesn't really factor into the plot. This probably has something to do with the fact that early humanity was guided and taught by the Bwr, a One-Gender Race of all-female centaurs.
    • The big What If? here is that their religion, which is otherwise extremely similar to Catholicism, is based on a god that is both male and female. This change echoes throughout every aspect of this middle-ages-inspired setting, and for the most part explains why the world seems to be devoid of institutional sexism. It seems to have been replaced, with intense class hierarchy serving as the main social conflict.
• The Dunwych tribals of Cthulhu Armageddon for Native Americans. They are also a subversion in that they are one of the most technologically adept peoples and have access to the most knowledge from before the Rising. It's just that they are also a tribal people, ecologically integrated, worshipers of the Great Old Ones, and take names based upon their deeds as often as not.
• In The Dagger and the Coin, the area of the world in which the plot is set is pretty clearly a fantasy counterpart of Europe, although some of the countries have easier to find parallels than others:
  • Antea is very clearly Germany.
  • Asterilhold is, by extension, Austria.
  • The Free Cities are the medieval Italian city-states; Vanai in particular is, paradoxically, a combination of Venice and Florence.
  • Herez and Cabral seem to be Aragon and Castille, although which is which is difficult to tell, given how little we've seen of either.
  • Birancour has elements of both France and Belgium.
  • Northcoast, likewise, seems to have elements of both France and England. It may seem peculiar that the holding company of the Medean bank, which sounds like it must be based on the Medici bank, is based in Northcoast, instead of in one of the Free Cities. It becomes clear in the fourth book, however, when Cithrin invents central reserve banking, and transforms the Medean bank into the fantasy counterpart of the Bank of England.
  • Hallskar seems to be Scandinavia generally.
  • Sarakal and Elassae are somewhat harder to pin down, as is the Keshet. The Timzinae, who are the primary population of both Sarakal and Elassae, play the part of the Jews to the Anteans' Nazis, but there are no really obvious parallels between Timzinae and Jewish culture.
  • The Dragon Empire, of course, was the Roman Empire.
• The Darkness Series has an interesting take on this trope. The series is essentially a fantasy version of World War II. So, every nation taking part in the series fills the role of a power from the war. However, physically, culturally, and linguistically, these nations are also something of a mix-and-match of various world cultures. Algarve plays the role of Nazi Germany, but its people are Scots-Irish in appearance, and their language is based on Italian. Another good example is Kuusamo, which fills the role of the United States, but is populated by Finnish-speaking East Asians.
• Dark Shores has Celendrial Empire, which (as the author herself claims) is based on the Ancient Rome, complete with their legions, conquests, politics and titles (from the republican period), architecture, fashion, and the subordinate role of women.
• Deryni:
  • The map of the Eleven Kingdoms looks like a rough approximation of Northern Europe. Imagine Ireland and the UK are attached to the continent, so that The English Channel is a broad estuary; Scandinavia is a simple vertical coastline sans Denmark; there's no Italy or Greece or Mediterranean visible. The analogues to modern nations would be something like Cassan/Kierney/Transha/Claibourne = Highland Scotland, Meara = Lowland Scotland, The Connait/Howwice = Ireland, LLannedd = Wales, Gwynedd/Carthmoor/Corwyn = England/The Netherlands/Germany, Bregmagne/Fallon/Fianna = France, Torenth = Hungary/Russia/Belarus, Tralia/The Forcinn = The Levant (Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Jordan), R'Kassi = North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, plus Arabia).
  • Culturally, the regions and their inhabitants as depicted in the text match their real world analogues; R'Kassi horses are famous, as is Fianna wine, while people from the Cassan/Kierney/Transha/Claibourne region wear tartans, speak with broad Scots-like accents, and have a clan system and tanistry (elected leadership within the clan). A version of Catholicism sans the Papacy prevails in the west, with Eastern Orthodoxy prevailing in Torenth, Islam to mostly to the southeast and a Norse paganism in the far north.
  • Politics tends to follow some of the real conflicts of medieval Europe. Particular attention is given to the rivalry between spiritual and temporal authority, including disputes over the benefit of the clergy. Such conflicts are sharpened by the Deryni persecutions within Gwynedd; Church authorities forbid the powers as evil, yet foreign kingdoms (including Gwynedd's main rival Torenth) have no such compunctions. The Haldanes' solution is to claim their Deryni-like powers are different and a sign of divine sanction, though it plays as a distinction without a difference.
• Justified (or perhaps averted) in the Deverry novels by Katharine Kerr, where the main society isn't a counterpart to Gaul; they are Gauls, transported to a fantasy world to escape the "Rhwmanes".
  • Same thing with the Scottish society in Kate Forsyth's Witches of Eileanan series.
• Justified in Dinotopia. The various cultures on the island were influenced by shipwreck survivors who brought their way of life with them. Also inverted by others who made it off the island. The second book states that the Egyptians were influenced by such people.
• Discworld:
  • The Disc is pretty much built of these, generally using it to satirize the original culture. Überwald is Transylvania (and Eastern Europe in general), Genua is New Orleans (with a bit of Disney World), Brindisi seems to be a mix of Spain and Italy, Klatch is the Middle East and North Africa (while also being a stand-in for any "generically foreign" place or concept), Howondaland is a mix of sub-Saharan Africa and Central/South America, and the Counterweight Continent is part China, part Japan (especially the late Edo period). Llamedos is Wales, Djelibeybi is Ancient Egypt, and Ephebe is Greece. Pseudopolis and Tsort are Athens and Troy. Lancre is rural England with a dash of the Appalachians and a Scottish lean, Quirm seems to borrow a lot from France and Italy, and Ankh-Morpork has been described as a cross between eighteenth-century London and Amsterdam, nineteenth-century Seattle, and modern New York. The dust jacket for The Last Continent hung a lampshade on this; after mentioning the continent of Fourecks, it had a footnote saying "Which has nothing to do with Australia. At all."
  • The Empire (of the Counterweight Continent) keeps out foreigners by building a huge wall across the border. (It doesn't work, but then it's really there to keep the people in, so they don't notice outsiders aren't invisible vampire ghosts [i.e., Gwai Lo].) By and large, the Agatean Empire's approach to foreign policy was to pretend the rest of the Disc didn't exist. This is pretty close to Imperial China (as well as pre-modern Japan; the Empire is both).
  • The paperback edition of The Last Continent has it as a foreword, adding that it "just happens to be, here and there, a bit... australian" [sic]
  • And the Nac Mac Feegle are cartoon Celts—largely Scottish but always painted with woad, a la Braveheart.
  • And the Tezumen in Eric are clearly the Aztecs/Mexica.
  • Even New Zealand gets a look-in, recast as the Foggy Islands, and to add to the list of British Empire And Commonwealth Dominions, there are several vague but cumulatively telling hints here and there in the Discworld canon that point to there being a "South Africa" on the Disc, no doubt turned up to eleven with biltong occupying the dwarf bread culinary niche and memories of a past war involving Welsh soldiers and a people not completely unlike Zulus (a Llamedosian regiment is said to have distinguished itself at a battle of "Lawkes' Drain"...)
  • So far, the only distinctly recognizable part of the United States to have made it into Discworld is the Mississippi River (The River Vieux) and the Delta, serving as an all-purpose Deep South/Louisiana, with creole language and cuisine, riverboats, voodoo, and witch-queens overlying a superficially-Disney magic kingdom called Genua.
  • Red Indians (Native Americans) exist on the Discworld^note  Ref. One-Man-Bucket, the spirit guide to Mrs Cake in Reaper Man but are assigned the rolling prairies of central Howondaland — the proto-Mid-West is transplanted to the Discworld Africa. ^note  The Complete Discworld Atlas creates a massive region, marked as empty wilderness on the previous Mapp, called "The Great Outdoors" and populated by those who fled their previous homelands due to famine, poverty, and political or religious persecution. "Tired and huddled masses" are explicitly referred to. This has created a loose association of different ethnicities and language groups who get together to trade and buy and sell from each other. The people are characterised by independent bloody-mindedness, a hatred of excessive government, the right to carry whatever weapons they bloody well like, and in the case of the extreme Omnian schismatics who harvest salt around a salt lake, polygamy and abstinence. Hmmm.
  • A version of Ireland has been conspicuous by its absence in the books but Unseen Academicals mentioned the very Irish sounding 'Great Bronze Spoon of Cladh' so perhaps one exists and will appear someday. ^note  The Complete Discworld Atlas has a detailed map of the Disc in which it is revealed that Llamedos in fact has a border region where place names such as Cladh betray a more Gaelic rather than Welsh etymology. If a Discworld Ireland exists, it is in the outlying fringes of Llamedos, shading into the barely-described Hergen, where the people and the spoken language become strange and unintelligible even to the "Welsh". The Atlas also makes Llamedos about as big as Britain, so the Hubward reaches becoming more Gaelic than Brythonic kind of makes sense.
  • The dwarfs of Discworld are a partially unintentional neutral-to-positive version of Space Jews (see that page for a more detailed exploration of how some Jewish fans may have realized it before Pratchett himself).
• The Divine Cities:
  • Saypur is based on India, while the Continent is a combination of Britain (former colonizers bitter about the loss of their empire) and Russia (names, climate, and being compelled to give up their religion). Only in this world, the British Empire fell so hard it was reduced to a third-world country and occupied by India. Meanwhile, Sigrud's homeland, the Dreyling countries, are very obviously based on Scandinavia.
  • In terms of religions, the Ahanashtans bear a close resemblance to Jainism, while Olvoshtan monks (who shave their heads and wear orange robes) are counterparts to Theravada Buddhists. Kolkan's harsh laws on topics ranging from same-sex relations to mixing fibers are an exaggerated version of The Book of Leviticus.
• The Dragon Jousters novels clearly take place in two-kingdoms Egypt. In an afterword, Mercedes Lackey admitted that she was tired of medieval Europe and wanted to try something different, and that she'd planned to just set it in Egypt, but that amateur Egyptologists were so picky that she renamed everything to avoid complaints.
• Dragonvarld:
  • The gypsies in the kingdom of Weinemaur are clearly based on the Roma, being nomadic people who have many different professions compatible with living constantly on the road, with some engaged in criminality as well.
  • Draconas visits a land over the ocean with desert nomads who have the clothes and customs of bedouin Arabs in our world, with some Arab terms used.
• In the Drake Maijstral series, the Khosali, one-time conquerors of Earth, are modeled on the British Empire. Very proper, very strict, very formal, very prudish (in their alien way) — very Victorian.
• Gujaareh from the Dreamblood Duology is based on Ancient Egypt, but it does notably avoid many of the more cliched elements, like pyramids and mummies.
• Drenai:
  • The Nadir, especially their portrayal in Legend, are basically Mongols and their leader a Genghis Khan Expy.
  • The Chiatze are very strongly based on Imperial China (but with samurai-equivalents thrown in).
  • The Sathuli have a lot of Muslim/Arab cultural features.
• The Fremen from Dune are pretty obviously based on the Bedouins (and on a lesser extent, the Bushmen) while Caladan has a strong Greek/Spaniard flavor (the Atreides bloodline is supposedly descended from Agamemnon). The Fremen are descended from Arabs, but ironically their wanderings before arriving on Arrakis resemble the Jewish Diaspora (of course, the same could be said about the Palestinians, so it's not too far off...). The political system of the Galactic Empire itself is pretty strongly modeled on that of the Holy Roman Empire, with Persian, Byzantine and Ottoman influences mixed in. The Backstory for the novels makes it clear that many core elements of these cultures have been preserved across dozens of centuries, and even justifies this by attributing it to Genetic Memory. The Denis Villeneuve Dune films are Truer to the Text in this regard, particularly for Fremen culture.
  • The Fremen religion is a cross between Islam and Buddhism. The name "Zensunni" is used a lot. Also, the Orange Catholic Bible — clearly, radical Protestantism and Catholicism have merged. Also, the tidbit about their crysknives needing to draw blood before being sheathed used to be said of Nepalese kukris (though Gurkhas probably didn't take it as seriously as the Fremen), maybe explaining the "Zen" part.
  • The prequel Legends of Dune books make it clear that the Agamemnon from whom the Atreides line descends was not the historic Agamemnon, but rather a fictional future-cyborg-warlord of the same name. Don't think it's explicitly stated anywhere that this Agamemnon is himself descended from the historic one. Of course, as the prequels were written by Frank Herbert's son, this interpretation may diverge from what the original author intended. The implication is in the name. Agamemnon and Menelaos are collectively referred to in The Iliad as the "sons of Atreus" or, for short the Atreids. Then again, Herbert indulges so heavily in Future Imperfect (according to the history of the setting the first Padishah-Emperor was Alexander the Great, and Washington was the name of the first noble house to use atomic weapons in war) the two may very well have gotten conflated somewhere along the line.
• Earthsea: Word of God claims there's no specific analogue but draws heavily from many non-European cultures, an aspect that perhaps is one of the setting's strongest points in a genre still dominated by medieval western Europe. Broadly speaking, the world seems to be based on a Polynesia with metallurgy, some cultures even vaguely matching Hawaii, Rapa Nui and the Maori, but elements from Babylon, Mesoamerica and West African are also abundant.
• Empire of the Vampire: The Empire seems to largely consist of several reasons of Old World cultures in late medieval or early modern period. The centre of the empire, Elidaen, has a heavy French and Mediterranean vibes and has been the traditional centre of power, culture and innovation on the continent. Nordlund seems a mix of Germanic countries, and is renowned for its geography and hardy people, though still culturally and ethnically unremarkable. Ossway is a mix of Ireland and Scotland, with highland clans brimming with red-haired warriors with heavy accents. Finally, Sudhaem appears to be a mix of Arabic and African cultures, with it's people dark-skinned and naming conventions taken after the Muslim world. All realms of the Empire are united by the One Faith.
• An Exercisein Futility has the Kalharian Empire, with a few similarities to Ancient Rome. They're both the same kind of The Empire.
• Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser: When the eponymous heroes get lost in Ningauble's caves and emerge on Earth, their personal histories and memories are altered appropriately. Fafhrd is, not surprisingly, now Scandinavian, and Lankhmar is replaced by Alexandria. The real reason for this is that "Adept's Gambit" was an early story Leiber had written prior to creating the his world of Nehwon, and he later used the "Ningauble's interdimensional caverns" gimmick to shoehorn it into canon.
• The unnamed kingdom in Delia Sherman's The Fall of Kings is clearly based on late 17th-early 18th century Britain with the North and South standing in for Scotland and England respectively. There doesn't seem to be an analog for Wales. Kyros is meant to be Greece, more specifically Crete.
• The Familiar of Zero takes place in a suspiciously medieval European setting. Based on the names (which are simply archaic names for the nations they represent), Tristain is Belgium or the Netherlands, Albion is Britain (complete with a rebel leader named Cromwell), Gallia is France, Romalia is Italy, and Germania is (obviously) Germany. This is a little more complex. Halkeginia (Europe counterpart) is loosely based on seventeenth century Europe: the Kingdom of Gallia is the Kingdom of France with some Spain in it, the Kingdom/Holy Republic of Albion are respectively the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Republic (with some Germany in it), the Holy Empire of Romalia is the Papal States (other parts of modern Italy don't have equivalents), the Empire of Germania is a combination of Germany, seventeenth century Austria and seventeenth century Poland, the Kingdom of Tristain is the Netherlands with some France in it, the Grand Duchy of Grudenholf is Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (and, as seventeenth century Luxembourg is under Austrian Netherlands rule, is under Tristain rule). There is also an unnamed state which could be Spain or Portugal. Outside of Halkeginia, there is also elfans' states like Sahara (Ottoman Empire) or humans' like Rub Al'khali (probably the Emirate of Diriyah).
• The many Fighting Fantasy novels set on the heroic fantasy world of Titan have a lot of these. Hachiman is Hollywood Medieval Japan, complete with Samurai. The Isles of the Dawn are, more or less, medieval China. Mauristatia in the Old World is a cross between medieval Germany and Hammer Horror-style Eastern Europe. The city-states on the south-east tip of Allansia are the Middle East. The Inland Sea region is the Arabian Nights Persian Gulf with bits of classical/mythological Greek and Phoenician Mediterranean. Vynheim is medieval Scandinavia. Lendleland is medieval Mongolia. Ancient Carsepolis was The Roman Empire. Chiang Mai is Thailand. Khakabad is Nepal.
• The First Law has a huge country called The Union, which rather resembles the Holy Roman Empire. Much of the action takes place in the province of Angland, where the characters fight against the Celt-based Northmen. The Old Empire, a ruined former powerful empire, resembles the Roman Empire down to names and architecture. Styria, being a collection of warring mercantile city-states, resembles Renaissance Italy, also down to the names. Gurkhul is loosely based on the Ottoman Empire, having also absorbed a number of Middle Eastern and African influences from its conquered territories.
• In the Gentleman Bastard series, there are several. Camorr is obviously Venice, with its canals and Italian-sounding words. Vadrans seem to be modeled on Germans/Slavic people (tall, blonde, famous for alcohol production). The old Therin Throne sounds similar to Rome (it even fell to the Vadrans!) and there are several other city-states with differing cultures, as well.
• Teresa Edgerton's Goblin Moon and The Gnome's Engine do this intentionally, being set in a 'Euterpe' that's a close fit to 18th century Europe, and incorporating such parallel nationalities as 'Spagnards', 'Imbrians', and 'Nordics'.
• The God Eaters is set in a version of The Wild West or a generic American Southwest during the Manifest Destiny period.
  • The Iavaians are primarily meant to evoke the Sioux peoples, who historically are nomadic. The Iavaian people are transplants to a rough analogue of the American Old West/Southwest, forcibly relocated from their traditional homelands by aggressive colonialist expansion. However, their religion differs markedly from Native North American Plains belief systems in that, while a pantheon of animist gods are worshipped, most are believed to be "dead", killed by the Eskaran god Dalan. Their patron god, Ka'an, was once human and was deified after inventing the practice of using opium poppies to induce trance states.
  • The Eskarans are a combination of the United States during the manifest destiny period of aggressive westward expansion across the North American continent, and The British Empire. The Eskarne Theocratic Commonwealth has conquered and colonized land, forcibly converting people to the worship of Dalan. While their religion includes the heavily regulated use of magic (in this universe, either innate "Talents" or taught thaumaturgy), the general culture is very Protestant, evoking white American Christian fundamentalism (specifically Presbyterianism, Baptism and Methodism). The Eskarn-Iavaian dynamic ends up both subverting and reifying tropes like Injun Country and Braids, Beads and Buckskins, in that while certain characteristics are present, the author (a white American man) is intentionally trying to illustrate the evils of colonialism and expansionism.
  • Yelorre is essentially Scotireland, which was likewise conquered by the Eskarans. Yelorreans are known to have red hair, and names like Ashleigh or Kieran. Yelorrean mythology isn't clearly explained, but the book mentions creatures called "siorin" (pronounced something like "sharn"), who are water-creatures that like to seduce people on land by their singing and beauty and then drown them in the ocean (compare to the Scottish kelpie, the Irish selkie, and the Greek siren).
• The Godspeaker Trilogy has a number of these. Mijak is based on the Hittites and Summerians. Etherea has elements of Medieval England. Thzung-tzhungchai is clearly based on China (Haisun probably too, but we never get to see any of it) and Arbenia and Harbisland have very definite German traits.
• Gor actually explains this in the Backstory: the humans are literally descended from people from various Earth cultures and time periods brought to the eponymous planet by aliens. Specifically, the main human culture is based on Greco-Roman and there are analogues of Vikings, Inuit, Plains Native Americans, Sub-Saharan Africans, Arabs, and others around the fringes.
• The shared universe of The Grisha Trilogy and Six of Crows features several. The most prominent is Ravka, based on Czarist Russia. There's also Shu Han, based on China, Fjerda, based on the Nordic countries, Kerch, based on the Netherlands, and the Wandering Isle, based on Ireland. The Suli people are equivalent to Romani. Novyi Zem is harder to pin down but seems to share aspects of the Americas, Africa, and Australia, and the never-visited Southern Colonies are used only as a generic "exotic" location.
• Gulliver's Travels has multiple, most noticeable the countries of Lilliput and Blefuscu being satirical stand ins for 18th century Great Britain and France respectively.
• Havemercy and Blood Magic are set in the nation of Volstov which is very similar to late 18th-early 19th cent. Russia minus guns and plus Magitek but with the geography reversed so that its capital is close to the border of the rival Ke-Han Empire which itself is an amalgam of Manchurian China and Samurai Japan, especially the latter.
• In the world of Heralds of Valdemar, the Hawkbrothers are just Native Americans with funny names.
• In Hic Sunt Dracones, there's quite a line-up with the following:
  • The Orkish Empire has an undeniably American feel to them and their territories are reminiscent of The Wild West complete with Settling the Frontier.
  • The Sylvan Commonwealth can be reminiscent of the British although they do have a wild side and their cobbled streets and gaslamps are a lot like Victorian Britain.
  • The Kingdom of Humanity is mostly a Take That! against the corruption, mediocrity and stagnation found in the Philippines, the author's home country.
  • The continent of Elbador, a continent being settled by the Orkish Empire can be similar to South America, complete with an Amazon River and rainforest while Panadyssia, a colony of the Sylvan Commonwealth has a lot in common with Australia, including an Outback, Uluru and hostile wildlife.
• The Honor Harrington series is based on this trope, since it's pretty much the Napoleonic Wars in space. Some are blatantly obvious, while others are little vague. Much fun can be had by history buffs trying to match up the Honorverse star nation with their historical counterpart. A few more obvious examples:
  • The Star Kingdom of Manticore itself is pretty much Britain in the 1800s, minus the empire (although it does become an empire in later books). They have a monarchy and active aristocracy coexisting with a democracy. Its three planets, Manticore, Sphinx, and Gryphon, correspond to England, Wales, and Scotland (especially that last one). And it's a mercantile superpower.
  • Ruthlessly exploited with The People's Republic of Haven, which Weber spends eight books making you think is pre-Revolutionary France in the late 1700s with a veneer of democracy. Then it undergoes its own revolution, run by a Committee of Public Safety, which is led by a man named Rob S. Pierre. And its capital city is named Nouveau Paris. This is all so he can distract readers with those parallels right up until he blows up Napoleon. Eventually, it becomes a genuine democracy modeled on the modern United States, and drops the "People's" part from its name.
  • The Andermani Empire is explicitly based on Prussia - its founder, Gustav Anderman, believed he was the reincarnation of Frederick the Great. The Empire's official language is German, although most of its population is ethnically Chinese, so you got names like Chien-lu Anderman.
  • Grayson admits that it's Meiji-era Japan, complete with katanas. However, its actual cultural background is the Deep South.
  • Subverted in the case of Masada, which has a lot in common with Taliban-run Afghanistan (veiled women, strict religious laws, and a government composed entirely of religious fanatics)... except that the Masadans first appeared in Honor of the Queen, published in 1993, and the Taliban only came to power in 1996.
  • Author David Weber himself compared the Kingdom of Torch to 19th-century Haiti following the slave uprising there, only more stable and backed by several major powers.
  • The one surefire aversion is the Solarian League, which is far too big for any historical parallel. Weber once said "If the Solarian League is the United States, then Haven and Manticore might as well be individual counties in California".
• The Hunger Games: Panem is a futuristic, sci-fi version of Rome. The country's name is an adoption of Rome's "Bread and Circuses" motto — panem et circenses in Latin. The Capitol is an incredibly authoritarian superpower that brutally reigns over conquered territories to feed the decadent desires of its own citizens. The gladiatorial parallels with the Hunger Games are obvious, of course. Parties at the Capitol feature guests who induce vomiting so that they can consume more food, which is popularly thought to have been common at Roman banquets. The Capitol residents' first names are almost all from Roman historical figures.
  • As a bit of extra Genius Bonus, the lottery slips that entitle the residents of the districts to free food (at the cost of increasing their chances of being reaped) are called Tesserae. In Ancient Rome, the Tesserae Frumentariae are tokens handed out to citizens of Rome which can be exchanged for free grain. In the districts, bread and circuses come in a single package.
  • There are also 13 districts ruled over by a distant authority, not unlike the 13 Colonies that would some day become the modern United States of America.
  • Also, Panem is the capital- Washington D.C./New York; District 12 ls coal-mining Appalachia; District 11 has dark-skinned people and is agricultural like the American South; the lower-numbered districts are more prosperous and closer to the capitol, like Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey.
• Averted and played straight in the Inda books. The Venn are clearly based off the Vikings, but that's because they are Vikings, or at least are descended from a bunch of Vikings who crossed from our world to Sartorias-Deles. Their distant descendants, the Marlovans, have a completely different culture that presumably developed after they split away from the Venn. Other nations and cultures within the world have no clear Earth equivalent, having been in the world and developed away from Earth for long enough that they no longer resemble whoever their initial progenitors were.
• Nyumbani, the setting for Imaro, is full of counterparts to tribes, kingdoms, and empires of ancient Africa. Most notably, the Ilyassai people that the hero hails from is based on the Maasai.
• Inheritance Cycle: Though it may be unintentional, the dwarves have several similarities to ancient Israelites, such as migrating from what is now a desert in the distant past, being a nation composed of 13 clans (like the 12 tribes of Israel), and having one of those clans be a priestly caste (and named Quan, sounding similar to Kohen).
• Glen Cook's The Instrumentalities of the Night series takes place in 12th- or 13th-Century Europe and the Middle East, except with the names (and some aspects of the religions) changed — and magic works. Most of the action takes place in Firaldria (Italy), the End of Connec (Languedoc), and the Grail (Holy Roman) Empire. The main character is a Sha-lug (Mamluk) from Dreanger (Egypt) sent to infiltrate the Chaldarean (Roman Catholic) Church and learn if they're planning another crusade against Al-Prama (Islam). Meanwhile, a cyclic shift in the forces of magic is bringing on an ice age much more severe than anything experienced in our history at the comparable time....
• In Chris Evan's Iron Elf trilogy, the Empire is clearly based on the British Empire of Victoria although the tech level is about a hundred years behind. Likewise, the Mashugeb lands are just as clearly northern Africa and Elfkynan is India under the Raj.
• The Isavalta series is a rare use of a Russian fantasy counterpart.
• The eponymous nation of Jackals in the Jackelian Series is a Steampunk version of Victorian England, although they have a much less reverent attitude towards their royalty (this is because they went through their version of the English Civil War - complete with "Isambard Kirkhill" and his "New Pattern Army", instead of Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army - only the democracy stuck), and the old druidic polytheism was also thrown out and replaced with the Circlist Church, which has Christian trappings but explicitly disavows all gods in favour of venerating an abstract cycle of life and reincarnation. Its hostile neighbor, Quatérshift, is a take on Revolutionary France with the Terror turned up to eleven (its former monarch was even known as the Sun King). Cassarabia is an Arabian caliphate, with the worship of an immortal god-king replacing Islam and a love of bio-engineering. Catosia, with its warm climate and warring city-states, suggests a matriarchal Greece (and in particular Sparta), the Lashlites vaguely resemble Native Americans despite living in the equivalent of the Scottish highlands, Mechancia has the location and geography of Switzerland but is a kingdom inhabited by steam-powered robots with a religion that resembles Vodoun, Kikkosico, the vast and cold empire to the east of all those countries, seems to be Russia. The Southern Forests serve as Darkest Africa, Concorzia and Isla Verde seem to be Latin America, the Polar Barbarians are probably Vikings, and the Black Oil Horde seem like Diesel Punk Mongol hordes. There's also an extinct Mayincatec civilization that's dominated by a Religion of Evil worshiping monsters that turns out not to be not so extinct after all
• The Katurran Odyssey is basically the Avatar: The Last Airbender of furry settings.
  • The lemurs in the island of Bohibbah bear some resemblance to native Malagasy peoples.
  • The thriving city of Acco is clearly based on Turkish merchant culture and architecture.
  • The Kolloboo are architecturally inspired by East African kingdoms like Zimbabwe, though culturally they're basically Athens. Of all the civilizations shown, they are the only ones with obviously European influences, having books, renaissance-style paintings and even medieval illustrations.
  • The Patah are based off nomadic Saharan peoples like the Amazigh, with plenty of Persian trappings.
  • The Boskiis are based on native Indonesian and Malaysian peoples, with a few Papuan influences.
  • The Dourahn are aesthetically based off the Khmer Empire, with a few Tibetan Buddhist trappings (ironically, given that they're a materialistic, religion-rejecting The Empire).
• Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone features this, most obviously the "good guys" countries, Virgenya and Crotheny giving very strong Britain-and-it's-territories vibe, Vitellio as a sort of Spaintaly (complete with the head of the Church based there), a variety of southern countries of Mediterranean-and-western-Europe inspiration (Safnia, Terro Gallé...) and the evil (well, from most main characters' perspective) northern Hansa with a Germanic flavor... Indeed, it's implied and/or stated that those countries were mostly founded by the descendants of people from the corresponding regions of Earth.
• The country the Knight and Rogue Series takes place in looks suspiciously like Europe.
• Kushiel's Legacy:
  • Basically every single location is some version of this. Terre d'Ange is France down to the language and various other parallels; in one particularly egregious example, the Venice-counterpart is named "La Serenissima", a nickname by which the real city is sometimes called.
  • Skaldia is an interesting example. It's located where Germany is in Real Life and the culture is Old Germanic with a hefty dose of Norse, but the history is a mix of different German time periods. They're initially Germanic barbarian tribes (Roman period) who are united under a single leader (a la Otto von Bismarck) that is then soundly defeated by an alliance of France and Britain (World War II) and afterwards becomes known more for trade than force of arms (modern-day Germany, reputed to have the strongest economy in the Euro zone). Of course, Terre d'Ange is basically France at the height of its power, which makes it easy for them to defeat Skaldia, whereas Real Life Germany and France were indeed historical enemies^noteThe mutual enmity only began to subside after WWII, and ironically by now both countries have arguably the strongest ties in the Eurozone and share a lot of mutual strategic interest - it's no coincidence the Franco-German cooperation is referred to as the "dual engine" or "dual heart" of the EU and had several wars, it's France who was usually decisively on the receiving end (apart from a few memorable exceptions). Specifically in the case of WWII, it can hardly be said that France "won" it by virtue of own merit.^noteThat was still a primarily Soviet/American/British enterprise with France being liberated by the Western allies and contributing mainly in the end phase of the war, with Germany already on the verge of collapse.
  • Alba is a Britain where the Celts were never replaced by the Anglo-Saxons and Normans as the dominant cultural group (the name is Scots Gaelic for Scotland, and the "mab" in Drustan mab Necthana is a real patronymic used in Welsh, Breton, and Cornish). The Dalriada in the first book are borrowed in name from a Celtic kingdom that ruled in the Hebrides in the mid-first millennium A.D. (in real life it was later conquered by the Norse).
  • The Yeshuites are Ashkenazi Jews mixed with Roma and the mythology of Messianic Judaism. That is, they're caravanners who are basically culturally European Jews, but accept Jesus (and not Elua) as the Messiah. The name "Yeshuite" comes from Yeshua ben Yusuf, Jesus' name in Hebrew (it's a cognate of "Joshua").
  • The Tsingani are quite clearly based on the Roma, with words very similar to those in Romani, their wandering customs, reputations, taboos and trades.
  • Caerdicca Unitas is Renaissance Italy: a confederation of loosely allied city-states speaking a version of Italian.
  • Khebbel-im-Akkad is essentially Ottoman Turkey, except straddling the Fertile Crescent and Iran. It's also still pagan (following the Mesopotamian pantheon), Islam never having arisen in the series. It rules over Drujan, which is Zoroastrian and located in the real-life location of Azerbaijan.
• The UnUnited Kingdoms in The Last Dragonslayer is clearly meant to be a parody of the UK.
• This was famously used in The Lord of the Rings, where the Shire is obviously based on the English countryside. This was fairly rare in J. R. R. Tolkien's works, though; most of his cultures were built by creating a language, and then a culture that used it. As he specifically notes in the case of Rohan, that their language was "translated" as an old form of English did not imply they were Anglo-Saxon in culture. Instead it was meant simply to maintain its position in the language family tree as regards to the Hobbits' tongue, which was translated as modern English.
  • On the other hand, the Rohirrim — as noted under Film on the main page — are a sort-of Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Goths (or Gothic realm on Black Sea steppes to be specific), except perhaps with the Goths swapped for another Germanic group, the Anglo-Saxons.
  • The surviving eastern empire of Gondor is the Byzantine Empire, while the fallen realm of Arnor is the Western Roman Empire.
  • The Southrons are dark-skinned scimitar-wielding horsemen and elephant-riders coming from regions in the south. They represent the Medieval concept of the Saracens- note that though serving the wrong side, they are shown sympathy and are given respect as courageous warriors, as Saladin was. While the Easterlings ride great wains or wagons. They do not correspond to any specific real culture and are meant to echo generalized outside threats to early medieval Europe, like the Huns or Slavs.
    • Some Tolkien-inspired fantasies portray dwarves as Scotsmen, though Tolkien himself did not. The closest Tolkien came to this was noting the dwarves tended to have harsh, guttural accents when speaking the common tongue. However, Tolkien's dwarvish language uses triconsonantal roots just like Semitic languages such as Hebrew or Arabic, and in fact he explicitly tried to portray some aspects of the Jewish diaspora and culture in a fantasy setting. However, all Dwarvish names are Old Norse. (Though those are not the "real" names in Dwarvish, which are never revealed to non-Dwarves, but rather Norse names from the human cultures around the Lonely Mountain.) Those in The Hobbit are taken from the names of the first dwarves ever created, in Poetic Edda.
  • The ancestors of the Rohirrim have Gothic-style names (Vidugavia, Vidumavi), and they were involved in conflicts a confederation of Easterling horse cultures, probably mirroring the fourth-century clash of Huns and Goths.
  • Numenor, Tolkien's fantasy version of Atlantis, is not quite Ancient Egypt, but Adunaic again mirrors Semitic languages in its general structure, and their advanced culture and later obsession with deathlessness, embalming, and grand sepulchral architecture makes it hard not to think of that. They even had a valley of rock-hewn burial chambers for their Kings and Queens, and names like Ar-Pharazon do the rest to cement that association.
  • The men of Far Harad in the far south were described as "black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues"; that is also where the mumakil (elephants) were captured and trained.
  • According to Tolkien's own account, certain places of his world have very precise real counterparts : Minas Tirith draws from Florence and Venice, Pelargir stands for Hissarlik (Turkey), and Fornost is Uppsala (Sweden).
  • The Lossoth — word in Sindarin that would translate as "multitude of snows" — from the bay of Forochel are clearly inspired by the Inuit, they live in a frozen area covered in snow most of the time, they use sleds pulled by dogs, they build iglues among other characteristics that link them to the Inuit.
  • The orcs are an interesting example. In one of his letters, Tolkien relates that they were directly influenced by medieval European perceptions of the Mongols, owing to their nature as a monstrous warlike horde from the east. However, they're also industrialized, which many scholars have theorized was intended as a critique of the direction England was headed by the time of the Industrial Revolution, in contrast to the agarian hobbits (this is particularly evident in the books, in which they conquer and industrialize the Shire). Many earlier adaptations and derivative works (most famously Warhammer) depict them as speaking in Cockney dialects.
• Lyonesse has several: the aristocracy of Lyonesse seems to be vaguely Germanic, Dahaut is pre-Revolutionary France, and the Ska are based on the Vikings. Troicinet represents Britain. All of these are based not so much on modern images of these cultures as on representations from the 19th century or earlier (Troicinet is a sea power and balances the other nations; the Ska aren't noble warriors but fearsome and heartless raiders, similar to portrayals of Vikings in medieval English sources.)
• Isle de la Lumiere, where Malediction Trilogy is set, seems to be an equivalent of 17th century France, as shown by the names of characters, their aristocratic titles, fashion, entertainment and weapons. Funny enough, the only character with an English name, one monsieur Johnson, is a foreigner and comes from the continent.
• A Memoir by Lady Trent:
  • Anthiope is the equivalent of Europe and the Middle East as an independent continent. Scirland^note actually from the same root as "shire" is Britain, Thiessin is France, Bulskevo is Russia, Nichaea is Greece (though it's entirely an island country), Chiavora is Italy, Vystrana is Ruritania, and Akhia is Arabia.
  • Dajin is broadly equivalent to Asia, with Yelang^note actually the name of an ancient kingdom in western China as China and Vidwatha as India (partially colonized by Scirland). The Mrtyahaima mountains are equivalent to the Himalayas.
  • Eriga is equivalent to Africa, and the title of Oba for the ruler of Bayembe implies they are at least somewhat Yoruba influenced. The Moulish are based on pygmy peoples.
  • Keonga is based on Polynesia, in particular Hawaii.
  • Othole, the continent across the sea from Dajin, may be equivalent to the Americas, but the only part we see is Coyahuac, reminiscent of the Yucatan.
  • One of the most notable cultural differences from our world is that the major religion in Anthiope is Segulism, based on Judaism rather than Christianity. The "Magisterial" branch of the religion is similar to Rabbinic Judaism, while the "Temple-worshipping" branch is based on the now-extinct worship at the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. It's an interesting take on if Judaism had ended up being an expansionist religion. The name of the Synedrion^note the Scirling parliament is probably derived from "Sanhedrin", the ancient council of Jewish sages.
  • The equivalent of Islam is called Amaneen, though it seems to be largely confined to Akhia.
  • The Draconeans have no exact cultural equivalent, though their art and architecture have an Egyptian bent to them.
• Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn:
  • The continent of Osten Ard is closely based on Medieval Europe, even down to the languages and their names for the days of the week. Unlike most fantasy Europes, this one actually has a Christianity parallel (and not a Crystal Dragon Jesus one, either), although the many of the Rimmersmen (Scandinavians) and Hernystiri (Celts) still worship (or at least believe in) the "old gods" in secret.
  • Also, the Qanuc or Trolls as the Rimmersmen call them are based on Inuit.
  • And the Sitha/Norns with their obvious parallels to Japan
  • Nabban is definitely Italy (ancient empire reduced to a small duchy, containing the central authority of the Church and figuring as the evil empire in the stories of Usires (Jesus))
  • The Wrannamen are probably Southeast Asians
• In Josefine Ottensen's Mira Trilogy, the Truwa tribe are High Fantasy Jews. Mira's father is Truwa, and while you only become Truwa through the mother (Mira's mother is very middle-class and very white), Mira identifies strongly with the Truwa people. She eventually goes through a ceremony similar to a bat mitzvah, enraging her mother and putting her in grave danger, considering that the monarchy is planning to destroy all Truwa people.
• Monster Girl Doctor: The East is a xenophobic and human-supremacist archipelago nation ruled over by an Emperor who lives in the capital, Heian. In the case of the monster races, lamia are modeled on Arabs, and harpies live in decentralized tribes and wear feather and dream-catcher fetishes into their (very little) clothing.
• Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit takes place in an Alternate Earth with an Alternate Ancient Far East, specifically Korea.
• Old Kingdom has the pseudo-medieval Old Kingdom — where magic works but most modern technology fails as you approach the border, where Necromancy is a day-to-day hazard — sharing a border with Ancelstierre — which is remarkably like World War I England (or possibly World War I Australia/New Zealand given the author's antipodean roots) to the extent that the Ancelstierre army are armed with .303 bolt action rifles, .455 revolvers, white phosphorous grenades and Lewis guns and on the Border use both this and their khaki uniform AND sword bayonets, Mail hauberk with khaki surcoats and enchanted spears because when the wind blows from the south (Ancelstierre proper) magic stops working, but when it blows from the North (Old Kingdom) technology fails.
  • Also the Ancelstierre Moot (Parliament), the Chief Minister (Prime Minister) who runs the government, the Hereditary Arbiter (King/Queen) who lives in a palace without whose blessing you can't form a government mentioned when the bad guys start a civil war and the fact that they haven't taken over the Palace means they haven't won, and the fact that Ancels-Tierre is from the same root (Angles' Land) as England (compare the real-life French word for England, Angleterre)... it's England all right.
  • Ancelstierre also has cultural/political parallels with early industrial Australia insofar as being a nation bordered by a seemingly alien land that the government does not understand and fears. Protecting the nation's border is a huge deal. Australia is slap-bang in the middle of the Asia-Pacific, and until the 70s feared and did not understand what they called the "teeming hordes" of Asia. Other political parallels are also present.
  • Continuing south from Ancelstierre we come across some other vaguely European nations, a vaguely-Mediterranean sea and then a vaguely-Middle-Eastern region, refugees from which play a role in the third book.
• The Pit Dragon Chronicles really go for the gold on this. The entire series takes place on a planet that was once used as a penal colony. Almost all the main characters are descended from the original criminals, and generally have an inherent distrust of anyone who wasn't (all the criminals' descendants have a double K in their name — Jakkin, Sarkkhan, Akki, etc., so it's no secret who is who). The world is mostly great big deserts, great big mountains, and slightly uncivilized cities. Other planets keep trying to rule it and use its natural resources. The fact that the planet is named Austar IV is really just the icing on the cake.
• The Priory of the Orange Tree, based as it is on Saint George and the Dragon, has several recognizeable ones (as the front of the book notes). Inys is England as a matriarchy, Mentendon is the Netherlands, Seiiki is Japan, the Empire of the Twelve Lakes is China, and Hroth is Scandinavia.
• RCN: The Republic of Cinnabar is a blend of 1800s Britain, minus the monarchy, with bits of Republican Rome (author David Drake remarks that there's a surprising amount of overlap). The Alliance of Free Stars is a stand-in for Napoleonic France, with elements of Prussia and the Soviet Union.
• Redwall was initially apparently set in England, but gradually made it into a more generic English-like culture for Mossflower and some of the surrounding tribes and more generic fantasy cultures for others. In Triss, however, there are the Northlands around Riftgard, a kingdom of "pine forests, fjords, mountains, and pebble beaches" of (attempted) proud warrior race guys and seaborne raiding. However, they speak like Slavic pirates.
• The Reluctant King:
  • Novaria is made up of twelve city states akin to Ancient Greece or Italy until 1870, having a shared culture, language and religion despite being separate, with different government systems.
  • Shven is home to nomadic warriors modeled on the Mongols or similar cultures (although described as white).
  • Fedirun contains another culture that resembles the Bedouin Arabs.
  • Mulvan is an empire with a strict caste system resembling ancient India's, although it has features of Persia and China as well.
  • Iraz, dividing Mulvan from Fedirun, is also a lot like the Byzantine Empire.
  • Salimor, in the Eastern Ocean, resembles Japan and the Philippines.
  • Kuromon is based on China and Japan too.
• There are several good examples in The Reynard Cycle:
  • Arcasia is clearly inspired by France of the late Middle Ages, though it appears to be one that was built on top of an Expy of mythological Greece. The naming conventions reflect this (Count Bricemer is married to the Countess Pucelle, and their son's name is Acteon). Oddly, the people of Arcasia are generally depicted as being Ambiguously Brown, rather than Gallic.
  • Calvaria is a feared northern country that appears to be a fairly even mixture of ancient Sparta, the Roman Empire, and Scandinavia. Needless to say, many of its citizens are Proud Warrior Race Guys (Gals as well.) It's worth mentioning that it is the only country depicted as being populated by Caucasians.
  • Solothurn is inspired by Slavic culture and mythology. Their Grand Prince, for example, is called Koschei the Deathless, after the creature from Russian Mythology and Tales.
  • Mandross, a neutral country protected by mountains with a reputation for providing mercenaries is an Expy of Switzerland.
  • Glycon, a theocracy that fields slave soldiers, bears some similarity to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultunate. With dragons.
  • Tyris is a distant tropical continent that is currently being colonized by the Glyconese, who are enslaving its tribal inhabitants and forcing them to labor in plantations and mines.
• The Riftwar Cycle:
  • The setting is an almost-England kingdom that's conquered and brought civilization to the majority of almost-Europe, although they occasionally have trouble with their almost-African desert-people neighbors to the south, and the Greek/Roman hybrid nation of Queg. (The almost-Africans are ruled by a "master race" caste whose parallels to the Egyptian dynasties are too blatant to miss.) The titular Riftwar involves an invasion across space-time by a warrior race of almost-Oriental people who the author says are based on the Japanese and Korean cultures, called the Tsurani. Other notable cultures are the somewhat Italian Kingdom of Roldem and the Hillmen, who are basically Scottish Highlanders with a vaguely Buddhist religion. Later books introduce analogues to Chinese and Native American cultures (if Native Americans were Aryan), among others...
  • Feist's take on the moredhel — dark elves — is quite consciously Native American — tribal, shamanistic, and resentful of humans for what they (with good reason, considering their life spans) see as aggressive occupation of lands that are rightfully theirs. With the human tendency to breed like rabbits and thus their advantage of numbers, pretty much the only reason the border to the Northlands remains where it is now is that the lands the moredhel now occupy are too cold and barren for humans to even want them.
• The Rigante are essentially very Scottish Celts (and later, simply Scottish). The series also features counterparts of Romans and Vikings as well as, in the chronologically later parts, Native Americans, Cavaliers and Roundheads.
• Rose of the Prophet: In Tara-kan, we have desert-dwelling nomadic tribes clearly based on Bedouin Arabs, with people around them also being Arab but living in different city-states, plus an empire to the north. Across the sea, we have another continent pretty obviously inspired by medieval Europe, probably a northern part given the pale looks of people from there. However, in a twist the counterpart Arabs are pagans, not Muslim (though there is one sect which resembles fanatical Islam), while the counterpart Europeans have a religion very much like Christianity.
• Safehold series is set nearly 1000 years after humanity started a Lost Colony and had the project heads disagree about how deep the Space Amish needed to go. The winners implemented a religion designed to prevent technology that would attract the Scary Dogmatic Aliens that destroyed the rest of humanity. The conflict over this results in a religion very similar to Medieval Catholic Christianity. In addition, the main setting is The Good Kingdom of Charis, a (relatively) progressive and free-thinking island nation, with a powerful navy; it is visited by the protagonist, a cyborg copy of the executive officer of the colonists' escort fleet, who disguises herself as a man named Merlin, and greatly strengthens and enriches it, including establishing something very similar to Anglicanism. There is also the Republic of Siddarmark, comparable to the Austrian Empire in function and culture, Charis is England, Emerald is Ireland, Chisholm is Sweden, Corisande is France, and Harchong is comparable to China. (It is a large feudal empire, famous for fine silk, and gunpowder was (re)-invented there.) At one point in the first book Charis is explicitly compared to late-Renaissance/early Industrial Revolution England or Holland.
• In Saga of the Borderlands by the Argentine writer Liliana Bodoc, the inhabitants of the Fertile Lands are the equivalent to the pre-Columbian peoples, this way we have the Husihuilkes, inspired by the Mapuche, the Zitzahay and the Lords of the Sun, clearly Mayincatec, the Boreos, similar to the Vikings if their colonies in America had prospered, etc. The villains, the Sideresios, led by Misáianes, the Son of Death, are the Spanish conquerors if they had been guided by a God of Evil. The author herself has made it clear that the whole story can be read as a metaphor for the conquest of America in a universe where magic exists.
• Monica Hughes' Sandwriter is set in a Middle East counterpart. With oil disputes.
• Second Apocalypse:
  • Inrithi: Fantasy Christians. Their religion is based on an ancient text of tribal tales and laws that were amended in a separate text by a latter prophet who is worshiped as an incarnation of God. It is a hybrid between polytheism and monotheism, with an overarching "church" and leader akin to Catholicism. The Shriah is the Pope. The Holy War of the Inrithi nations to capture Shimeh is the equivalent of the Crusades to capture Jerusalem.
  • Fanim: Arab Muslims. Their fashion, weaponry, symbols and terminology are all Arab, and their staunch monotheism in comparison to the slightly more polytheistic aspects of Inrithism is reminiscent of Islam versus Catholicism's Holy Trinity and abundance of saints. The Padirajah is the Sultan/Caliph.
  • Nansur Empire: The Eastern Roman Empire, a lingering vestige of a once-great empire. Their commitment to shaving their beards reflects Roman style. Sumna, as home to the Shriah and the Tusk, is equivalent to Rome. Momemn, the capital of the empire, is Constantinople.
  • Scylvendi: Scythians or Sarmatians, though many readers will associate them with Mongols.
  • Shimeh: Jerusalem, a holy city in two major competing religions and the objective of a holy war by the Christian-equivalents.
• Lampshaded in Mercedes Lackey's SERRAted Edge series; most culture in the fairy world of Underhill was either transported there by visitors from our world, or copied by the fantastically imitative (but woefully uncreative) elves. In fact, to point out precisely which human-world culture (real or fictional) an elf ripped off is considered a huge insult by many of them.
• The Silerian Trilogy:
  • Sileria has many similarities to Sicily-feuding clans, powerful crime syndicates which extort and murder people, plus a succession of foreign rulers.
  • Valdania meanwhile has a resemblance to the Roman Empire, and it also has the same geographic relation of mainland Italy to Sicily, plus it's religion may be a vague Christian counterpart-it apparently involves "the Three" with a "sign of the Three" and believers say "Three into one!" On the other hand, its priests sacrifice goats.
  • The Moorlands mirror Scotland or Ireland somewhat, with the description of its people, the moors obviously and having a clan-based society.
  • Kinto, however, does not appear to have a counterpart, though it has vague similarities with some East Asian nations (e.g., the Palace of Heaven evokes China perhaps, plus it's language terms seem distantly Japanese).
• In The Sovereign Stone, there are Japanese Elves, Mongol Nomadic Dwarves and Viking Orcs. The Humans in this setting are divided into multiple cultures resembling Medieval England (Vinnengael), Arabia (Dunkarga), Persia (Karnua) Africa (Nimran and Nimorean) and Celtic (Trevenici).
• The Star Wars Expanded Universe uses this a lot:
  • The forest moon of Endor is, to some extent, an equivalent of Darkest Africa in a galaxy far, far away. And the Ewoks are very, very similar to African pygmy tribes.
  • Mandalorians waffle between Celts and Maoris, depending on how loyal to the films they are being. The Mandalorians of the pre-Seventh Battle of Ruusan are more akin to the Vikings, especially during the Mandalorian Wars. Their helmets resemble the Spartans.
  • Some races verge on Space Jews, due to the influence of the films:
    • The Toydarians especially Watto are often accused of being a Greedy Jew stereotype.
    • The Tuskens are loosely based on Bedouins and Native Americans, though they're given a more fleshed out culture than that seen in the films.
    • The Neimoidians are Japanese.
    • The Nightsisters of Dathomir are based on the Lamanites of The Book of Mormon, with matriarchy thrown in.
    • The Galactic Empire was originally Space Romans mixed with Those Wacky Nazis.
    • The Nagai are based on the Japanese.
    • The Nelvaan are Magical Native Americans. Plains and Southwestern. Anakin even goes on a Vision Quest.
    • The Yuuzhan Vong are based on the Aztecs. Hence, the self-inflicted Body Horror. They have shades of Imperial Japan as well, though, in terms of their veneration of martyred heroes and occasional use of kamikaze tactics in losing battles. Their status as The Horde to the galaxy as well as killing a good chunk of the galactic population and clan-based structure make them akin to the Mongol Empire.
  • The Sith get a number of different characterizations, depending on the work:
    • Sometimes a medieval culture, as are the Sorcerers of Tund.
    • Ancient Sith are basically a space-themed version of Ancient Egypt as this pic◊ shows.
    • Some instances, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic have some Cold War trappings, with the Sith in a vaguely Soviet-esque role.
  • The Aing-Tii are Tibetan Buddhists, with their idea that good and evil are just two extremes on a rainbow.
  • The Massassi are Mayans.
  • Corellians are based on Americans, though their disproportionately powerful Space Navy has vaguely British trappings as well.
  • Coruscant is based on the Biblical Tower of Babel. It's even Vongformed rapidly because of the sheer blasphemy (in the Vong religion).
• In Stravaganza, 'stravaganti' are humans with the ability to teleport between Earth and a Fantasy Counterpart Culture version of Italy while asleep. The twenty cities of Talia are stand-ins for the most important Italian cities. When it's night in Talia, it's day on Earth and vice versa.
• The titular state in The Story of Saiunkoku is a fantasy counterpart of Imperial China, especially that of the Tang and Song Dynasties.
• The world of the Sulien novels features fantasy parallels of a whole bunch of Arthurian Legend, with the island of Tir Tanager standing in for England and going on from there, down to Saint Patrick, Jesus and Arthur himself. Figuring out what the real-world equivalents are is a great deal of the fun.
• Swan's Braid & Other Tales of Terizan: The Kerbers seem to be inspired partly by the Amazigh (formerly known as Berbers) and Arabs, given that their people have Arabic style names, with them living in the desert. One group of them, the Kalazmir, are also ruled by the Kalamir (amir is "prince" in Arabic). However, they are described as having lighter coloring than what's common for Arabs or Amazigh. Kerbers wear robes, like many Arabs or Amazigh often do. One must have Kerber ancestry to wear them, like Swan. Like both Arabs and Amizagh, their people have tribes too.
• Tales of MU:
  • The setting is the Imperial Republic of Magisteria, which is America mixed with the Roman Empire in a Dungeon Punk world. The island of Yokan is a version of Japan populated by Little Bit Beastly yokai. Members of a totally original race of little people who live in cozy holes in shires have a rural English-type culture. The forest-dwelling elves have Ancient Greek names and culture. The dwarves are basically German.
  • Early discussions of the ideas outsiders have of subterranean elves mirror American ideas of the Muslim world. When we see the culture up close, though, there's no resemblance whatever.
• Tales of the Branion Realm is set in an alternate Britain down to the map and the place names, with two opposing Crystal Dragon Jesus faiths — one is basically Continental Catholicism with a dragon thrown in, and the other has similarities to Celtic Christianity but is based around the four classical elements. The conflicts are inspired by the English conquest of Wales, the Scottish Risings, and the Hundred Years' War.
• The political situation in the Tales of the Fox series is inspired by post-Roman Britain, with Elabon as Rome, the Trokmoi as the Celts, and so on.
• Tales of the Magic Land: The culture of the Miners/Ore-Diggers is based on (the Soviet idea of) Renaissance Europe, seen in their overly elaborate monarchical system and half-Hispanic, half-Italian names. The "canon" illustrations, developed with the author's help, reflect that in their outfits.
• Talion: Revenant:
  • Some of the Uls live like stereotypical Romani, traveling around in colorful caravans and telling fortunes (although they aren't viewed or portrayed as thieves/child kidnappers).
  • Temur has some resemblance to Afghanistan, with a tribal and clan-based society with a central government which has limited power beyond the city which is its capitol, plus the women having low status. A possible resemblance to medieval Mongolia also exists, with the frequent clan wars and Temuri being expert horse archers.
  • The Shattered Empire going by its description also was like the Roman Empire, the provinces then becoming new independent states after it fell apart, but many vestiges still exist from that era into the present (such as the Talions, who had been established by one of the Emperors but live on afterward).
  • Sensoth is not actually shown, but it seems to be the equivalent of a medieval African kingdom from what's seen of its people in the book.
• A Taste of Honey:
  • Daluz is heavily based on Ancient Rome, with Terra-de-Luce being an Expy of the city of Rome, including the white marble buildings and a Sybil on a mountain nearby. Also, the Daluçans speak Latin.
  • Olorum is based on a mix of ancient African kingdoms such as Kush.
• Through A Brazen Mirror by Delia Sherman has Albia (England), Gallimand (France), and Brant (Scotland).
• Tooth and Claw features a dragon society that matches very closely to Victorian England. Except, of course, that they're dragons.
• The Tortall Universe contains numerous examples.
  • Tortall itself is medieval England—a feudal society with knights and vassals, a temperate four-season climate, English (ish) names, and a large territory.
  • Tyra is analogous to Renaissance Italy (republic, Mediterranean-like climate, trade economy). The Great Southern Desert is Arabia with its Bazhir tribes standing in for Bedouin. Carthak is Africa, conquered by an empire originally located only at the north end of the continent. Scanra is Scandinavia, while Galla is probably something like Germany, Tusaine is France, and Maren is Spain. The Copper Islands are Southeast Asia (specifically Malaysia, but broadly many of the different island cultures). The Yamani Isles are Japan, while Jindazhen to the west of Yaman is the Tortallverse's version of China. Sarain is something like Persia or Mongolia/Central Asia, with the nomadic K'mir standing in for the Mongols. The political troubles are reminiscent of inter-warlord rivalries between Turkic and Mongol warlords in post-Mongol Empire Persia, Central Asia, and Mongolia.
• Diana Wynne Jones's own compendium of fantasy tropes and skewering thereof, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, makes this point.
• The Traitor Son Cycle takes a lot of inspiration from real-world cultures.
  • The continent of Nova Terra is based on North America (even though the two main nations are not!England and not!Byzantium). The Outwallers are analogous to American Indian tribes, furs and honey trade is important, and Fort Ticondaga is an expy of Fort Ticonderoga, down to its weakness.
  • Alba is medieval England, specifically shortly after the Black Plague, with the Wild attack standing in for the Plague and its results, such as better peasantry rights, smaller number of people and large uninhabited swaths of the country. They also have the hillmen, who are Scots counterparts.
  • Galle is medieval France, a prosperous state that nevertheless treats its peasantry like dirt and has knigths duelling to the death over the smallest things due to the country running on the Law of War.
  • Morea is late Byzantine Empire - slowly falling, increasingly reliant on foreign mercenaries, but with history dating back to the ancient empire.
  • Ifriqu'ya is Africa and the kaliphate states thereof, which are centres of science and Islamic faith.
  • Various background nations: Occitan and Arles are named after the medieval countries of the same name, and have similar culture; mercantile Hoek is Netherlands; Iberia is, obviously, Spain; the Archaics are Ancient Grome, mixing Greek philosophy with Roman law and military successes.
• Palladia and Merryland in Tranquilium seem like this for Tsarist Russia and Victorian Britain respectively, though the former is based on an archipelago and the latter is a republic; it's revealed pretty soon though that both were founded by people that crossed over from Earth over the years, mainly in the 19h century (and Merryland was mostly founded by Americans, at that!).
• Though Trinity Blood takes place in the distant future, the Methuselah/New-Human Empire is an amalgamation of the Byzantine Empire, several Eastern European nations and has some slight Arabic/Ottoman influences. Their capital is called Byzantium, their language is a mix of Russian and Romanian and their currency as called Akçe (the same as the Ottoman Empire's).
• The Twelve Kingdoms takes place in an Alternate Universe where a very strongly enforced divine mandate means that all twelve eponymous kingdoms are for all intents and purposes Ancient China.
• In the Videssos cycle, Videssos is closely modeled on the Byzantine Empire, and neighboring states are likewise based on the Byzantine Empire's neighbors.
• Villains by Necessity: Bariga seems to be one for Scotland, judging by its cold and northerly location, the Scottish terms that the Barigans use, and Arcie's surname, MacRory. The Gypsies also, who of course here fulfill the general stereotypes of Roma in real life-some being thieves, having a wise old woman who tells fortunes, painted wagons, etc.
• One of these for Ancient Rome is the setting for Tim Marquitz's War God novel, which is a Deconstructive Parody of this genre. The antiheroes intend to rig a tournament about this by upping the violence and murder to make their Fake Ultimate Hero look good so they can clean up when he crashes and burns.
• War Between the Provinces is a Fantasy Conflict Counterpart of the American Civil War, with geography flipped like in the Darkness series: the gray-clad Southron army fights to reunify Detina and free the serfs, while the blue-clad Northrons want to secede and keep serfdom around. The Mother Kingdom is Britain, which also controls the Sapphire Isle (Ireland), and there's a Russia-equivalent called Sorb.
• In The Warded Man and sequels, the Krasian culture is medieval Arabia with a healthy dose of Sparta thrown in. The Thesan duchies are generic medieval European.
• Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time does this a lot, with a mix-and-match approach. Cairhien seems to be a mix of Ancien Regime France and Heian Japan; Shienar is Sparta fused with Feudal Japan; Amadicia is modeled after Puritan America; the Seanchan are Ottoman Empire and Imperial China and Shogunate Japan, with Texan accents; Illian is a lot like Venice but its people have Greek-sounding names; Andor is similar to England and parts of the U.S.; the Aiel bear both Arabic and Native American similarities but look Irish and have Slavic accents; Tairens have much in common with Reconquista Spain crossed with Spanish-Colonial Era Philippines; the Sea Folk are reminiscent of Indians mixed with Polynesians; Shara appears to be a blending of Khanate Mongolia and Sub-Saharan Africans and the list goes on.
• In Who Fears Death, which takes place in an After the End Africa in which The Magic Comes Back, there is a war between the Okeke and the Nuru. The main character, Onyesonwu, is an Ewu, or a child of rape of an Okeke woman by a Nuru man. Even before the book is revealed to take place in Sudan, the Nuru are heavily implied to be Arab and the Okeke are implied to be black Africans. This is further confirmed in the prequel The Book of Phoenix, in which "Arab" is considered a slur by the Nuru.
• The Witcher:
  • Skellige islanders are shameless Viking expies, with the nation being a Culture Chop Suey of Norway, Ireland, and Scotland.
  • Nilfgaard seems to be some cross of Ancient Rome (expanding city-state, speaks language of scholars as native language, calls army units "legions"), The Soviet Union (heavy use of secret police) and the bad side of Germany (predilection for wearing black, sun-associated imagery, policies of ethnic and cultural purity, disdain for "degenerate" outsiders).
  • The elves seem to be inspired by something, but the fandom is not sure whether it's the Celts conquered by Rome or Rome conquered by barbarians.
  • The various Northern Kingdoms are all representative of some European Medieval Kingdom. Redania is Poland, Kaedwin is Russia, Temeria is France, Cidaris and Verden are England, Aedirn is likely Bohemia or Switzerland, Lyria is similar to Spain, and the petty kingdoms in the far north like Kovir and Povis are representative of Italy.
  • The duchy of Toussaint is technically part of Nilfgaard, but so is everywhere else by the time of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and it has its own distinct culture based on the Mediterranean regions of Italy, Spain, and southern France.
• The Witchlands:
  • Dalmotti is Republic of Venice writ large, being a republic run by a Doge, with the capital called Veñaza City and the names sounding vaguely Italian.
  • The brief description of Svoden and their longships makes it seem very inspired by traditional portrayals of Viking-era Scandinavia.
  • The pirates of Saldonica bear resemblance to real-life Barbary pirates, including slave-taking, owning land and ports and hailing from a desert region.
• Wizard of Yurt: The setting is clearly an alternate version of Medieval Europe. A Byzantine East and Muslim world also exist. Unlike in many fantasies, the religion is even explicitly Christian, without even changing the name (specifically, Catholic).
• The World of the Five Gods stories are set in a north-to-south inverted version of Europe.
  • The Ibran peninsula (including Chalion, Ibra, Brajar, and the Roknari princedoms) is an analogue of the Iberian peninsula, Darthaca is France, the Weald is the Holy Roman Empire, Cedonia is Byzantine Greece, the Cantons are Switzerland, Lodi is Venice, etc. There are some distinct differences from Earth geography, however; where Italy should be is just a chain of islands, and the Roknari archipelago fills the role of North Africa. As everything is set in the southern hemisphere, areas to the south are colder and areas to the north are warmer.
  • Various historical personages have counterparts as well. The Curse of Chalion is based on the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, so many characters are based on historic personages. In ancient backstory, Great Audar's role is that of Charlemagne, with the massacre at Holytree taking the place of the Massacre of Verden.
  • There are even religious schisms, despite this being a world with Physical Gods. The ancient shamans of the Weald take the part of the Saxon pagans defeated by Charlemagne; the Quintarian religion that dominates the series takes on a cultural role similar to Christianity, while the Quadrene Roknari take on a role akin to the Islamic Moors. All of these acknowledge the same gods, but worship them in different ways; for example, the Quadrenes treat one of the Five Gods as a Satan analogue.

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