Balkanize Me

aka: Balkanise Me

"It is a general truth of this world that anything long divided will surely unite, and anything long united will surely divide."

— Romance of the Three Kingdoms

In Alternate History and Speculative Fiction (especially the kind that takes place 20 Minutes into the Future), authors like to have fun by turning big countries into lots of smaller ones. May be justified by a war, a large-scale catastrophe, or simply a successful secessionist movement. Often happens with the United States of America, resulting in the Divided States of America, but other large countries such as China or Russia are also considered fair game.

May result in a Vestigial Empire, if the former country continues to exist in a much smaller capacity. Contrast Space-Filling Empire, which is about filling the map with large countries so as not to bother with pesky borders. Also see United Europe, Expanded States of America, and Middle Eastern Coalition as other examples of counterparts, where different countries link up or expand into huge regional or continental polities.

Historical Truth in Television.

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Examples:

• Real Life

Anime & Manga

• In the original alternate history of Eureka Seven AO, Okinawa Prefecture has recently seceded from Japan with help from China. Saudi Arabia also has become some number of nations one of which is the Republic of Faisal Arabia.
• Ghost in the Shell has a Balkanized USA. After the end of the nuclear World War III, the United States was divided into three countries: the American Empire, the Russo-American Alliance ("Ameri-Soviet Union" in the manga published before the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union), and the United States of America.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run, the Kingdom of Naples is a separate nation from the Kingdom of Italy in 1890.
• In The Place Promised in Our Early Days, Japan was divided after World War II, with the southern half being administered by the United States and Hokkaido (later renamed Ezo) under control of the "Union." Both nations remain separate by 1999.

Comic Books

• In Judge Dredd, America, Russia, China, and Australia all consist of independent Mega-Cities and massive radioactive deserts. Mega-Cities that used to belong to former states do provide aid to each other. For instance, Mega-City One, Mega-City Two, and Texas City are in an unofficial alliance, but not the degree where either of the other two would intervene on MC-1's behalf during the Apocalypse War.
• Perky: The Land Of Lug ends up being split into two parts when Perky’s plan to resolve the Succession Crisis fails, although the two princes-now-kings still have a good relationship with each other.
• Titanium Rain has a neo-Imperial China and the Sino Union, made of China's peripheral territories minus Tibet.
• Following the Divided We Fall arc in Ultimate Marvel, USA became splintered into several smaller factions, complete with Texas declaring its independence.

Fan Works

• Code Geass Megiddo: Basically what happened to the Soviet Union after the EU conquered it in the titular Soviet War. As a result of (Western) European weariness toward further Russian aggression, the former USSR was broken up into much smaller states^note which correspond to real world federal subjects anyway and annexed, such that everything past the Urals is now referred to as Far Eastern Europe (or just the Far East).
• Earth's Alien History:
  • After their second Civil War between progressives and reactionaries, the Klingon Empire is permanently split between the democratic Klingon Republic and the authoritarian Empire of Kahless. The latter ends up further splitting after the Goa'uld War when the Unas Klingons rebel to break away and form the Pure Klingon Empire.
  • At the end of the Goa'uld War, most of the former Goa'uld Empire falls under the control of the Free Jaffa Nation, with the exception of Bastet's domain (which is now controlled by the Ka'tee movement, who keep Bastet as a figurehead and don't want to join the FJN) and Raiden's planet (which becomes a GaTO associate, but is independent as long as the Mortal Kombat tournaments are going on).
• In-universe example in RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse. Whereas in the Celestiaverse Celestia allowed a bloodthirsty warlord to unite the Griffon Kingdoms into an Empire that is still one of the biggest threats to Equestria, Princess Luna was a bit more proactive in her continuity, and signed mutual defense pacts with several of the more reasonable Kingdoms. Equestria's resources were more than sufficient to prevent the warlord's conquest, and the Kingdoms remain divided still.
• In The Rainsverse, the fall of Roam has split Equestria into four major successor nations (the Heartlands under King Sombra and Queen Chrysalis, the Lunar Kingdom under Princess Luna, the Solar Prelate under Princess Celestia, and the Crystal Empire under Princess Candence), and an unknown number of minor polities.
• In A Thing of Vikings, The Kingdom of Franks breaks up after King Henry I of the Capets attacks a peace deligation from Berk. The duchies of Normandy and Brittany join Berk while the Duchy of Aquitania and the County of Tolosa declare full independence. According to an epigraph, the rest of the kingdom eventually gets annexed by the Holy Roman Empire
• The Wanderer of the North: This was the fate of Ancient Equestria after its old capital was razed and the last Equestrian King slain by the invaders and monsters. The result was that Ancient Equestria was destroyed in the North and fractured into a smaller kingdom and several principalities in the South.
• Triptych Continuum: Zebra legends claim that their homeland of Pundamilia Makazi was once a single nation, but Discord's rule shattered it into isolated fragments as it did every other civilization. And while Celestia and Princess Luna forcibly united the settled zones of Equestria into a single nation, the hundred kraals of the zebras remain a hundred separate nations, each with its own government and legal codes. The only time Pundamilia Makazi truly unites is on the battlefield.

Literature

• In Caliphate, it's implied that the Indian subcontinent broke into many parts.
• In A Certain Magical Index, there exists the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations, an international alliance that consists of countries that broke away from Russia, including the nation of Elizalina itself.
• In the Emberverse, a sudden collapse of functioning technology has balkanized most of the world (though in some cases, nations have been re-expanding), though we really only see the former USA. An article on the author's website, as well as two short stories released, talk about how Great Britain survives due to its offshore islands where the population can wait until everyone on the mainland kills one another or die via natural means. It then rapidly expands to the point where in 2050 it controls all of Britain, Iceland (nominally) France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, a large Part of North Africa and the East Coast of the USA, as well as being the de facto rulers of New Zealand and what remains of Australia. It appears that instead of Balkanising, Europe simply falls apart and then a few states re-expand. Russia does dissolve into lots of rural kingdoms, though.
• One of the main characters in The Eschaton Series is from The People's Republic of West Yorkshire, and claims that there are over 1,500 countries on Earth, although it's clear that Earthers have outgrown the concept of nation states, and just keep the names for sentimental reasons.
• The first book in the Fall Revolution tetralogy, The Star Fraction, has a Balkanised UK, and mentions the UN having over two thousand national flags flying outside.
• Fire on the Mountain focuses on the breakup of the United States after a successful slave revolt in 1859 establishes the independent state of Nova Africa across the American south from Florida to New Orleans. We also learn that Quebec separated from Canada at some point; that Ireland became independent from the United Kingdom in the 1880s; that Palestine became independent from the Ottoman Empire; and that the 19th century European colonial empires were dissolved by the beginning of the 1900s.
• Foundation Series: The first few stories detail the process of this happening to the Galactic Empire, in a process inspired by the real-life case of The Roman Empire. It begins with the governors of several prefects in the outer Periphery declaring themselves independent kings, and the Empire being powerless to stop them. Over the next century and a half the Empire gradually loses more territory to rebel governors or popular revolt, until it covers just a third of the galaxy; it is reduced still further by the war with the Foundation and the subsequent civil war following the death of Emperor Cleon II. Another century later, the state calling itself the "Galactic Empire" is even smaller than the first breakaway kingdoms were, consisting of just a handful of agricultural worlds, and doesn't even have its capital on the planet Trantor, which was laid waste in a bloody revolt a few decades prior. The Empire finally comes to an end altogether when it is conquered by the Mule.
• Friday, in addition to Divided States of America, also has a divided Canada, and more than 400 UN member states. "Great Russia" is also mentioned, indicating that the Soviet Union broke up (the book came out in 1982, before it happened in Real Life). There's also a mention of Prussia, but whether or not it's the united Germany is unclear.
• China is further divided in Full Metal Panic!, in which it is now the People's Liberation Committee (North China) and the Democratic Chinese Alliance (South China). Makes more sense than many, given the long-standing (cultural) north/south divide along the Yangtze.
• Mentioned in the Galactic Marines novel Luna Marine, in which the UN is desperately trying to hold together and force the rest of the world into One World Order. Unfortunately for them, the current tendency in the world is the opposite — splitting countries into smaller political entities. Interestingly, one of the reasons for the US-UN war is the attempt by the UN to force just such a thing in the US with the creation of Aztlan from the Southwestern (i.e., Hispanic-dominated) states.
• In Galaxias by Stephen Baxter, the Island of Britain in 2057 is home to an independent Scotland, an independent Wales that has even rejected the monarchy, and a federated England in which all the regions have devolved. There's also a Divided States of America.
• In Larry Niven's The Goliath Stone, Western Australia is now the nation of Westralia. During the book China breaks into civil war and by the end there are five different "People's Republics", the only one named being Kowloon-Hong Kong plus Tibet.
• In Heavy Object, the world became a fully shattered mosaic of small territories, each belonging to one of the four big factions: Legitimacy Kingdom (where bloodline and honor are everything), the Information Alliance (where inexactitudes and false news are evil and weapons), the Capitalist Corporations (where charity is a crime) and the Faith Organization (a patchwork of every religion invented). You can barely travel more than a couple hundred miles in any given direction before running into a border.
• In The Inquisitor Cycle, this is what happens to the Arabian Peninsula; in this timeline, Christianity becomes even more militaristic due to Jesus Christ being a warlord who violently took over the Roman Empire, and Islam never came into existence because Muhammad was killed by a Christian patrol while fleeing from Mecca to Medina. As a result, the Arabian Peninsula is a fractured region between several polytheistic tribes which serves as a buffer state between Rome and the Persian Empire.
• In The Last Dragonslayer, basically every UK county becomes an independent nation.
• In John Barnes' Mother of Storms, Siberia has become independent of Russia. Ironically it in turn is trying to absorb an independent Alaska. And while Alaska is the only US state to secede Canada is broken into at least Pacificanada, Ontario and Quebec. What happened to the Maritime provinces or the provinces between British Columbia and Ontario is not mentioned. By the end of the book China has broken into a dozen or more states controlled by warlords.
• Orson Scott Card's Empire: In Hidden Empire, this happens to Nigeria after an American invasion with a Muslim north and several nations forming along tribal lines in the Christian south. This is presented as an ultimately positive thing, as most current African borders exist because of European powers dividing the continent with no concern for existing tribal, cultural or religious ties.
• In Ian McDonald's River of Gods and Cyberiad, an anthology set in the same universe, India has broken up into seven different nations.
• The Empire of Shattered Continent lost its Emperor in 1995, and most of his direct blood relatives died in the resulting scramble to grab the big chair. As of 2017 all the sub-kingdoms pay lip service to the still-vacant throne while doing effectively whatever they want, up to and including waging small wars on each other and handling their own foreign agendas outside the Empire.
• Star Wars Legends: After the Battle of Endor, the Galactic Empire began to fracture apart with the deaths of its two top leaders and elite military command staff. Over the course of nearly a decade, various Imperial Admirals began taking sectors for themselves and became warlords over sizable chunks of the galaxy, though over the course of the EU many of them were either conquered by the New Republic or absorbed into the Imperial Remnant, what remained of the centralized, original Galactic Empire.
• Several examples in the Thursday Next series — for example, the Socialist Republic of Wales.
• The Timeline-191 series is based off of the premise that the south won the American Civil War and the Confederate States of America became its own independent country. There are also a number of failed, unrecognized nations created by separatist rebels throughout the series, specifically the nation of Deseret in Utah and the various socialist republics founded by blacks in the CSA.
• In the backstory for Tolkien's Legendarium, the bulk of the Eriador region was under the aegis of the Dunedain kingdom of Arnor. Its strength depleted as a result of several major disasters during the War of the Last Alliance against Sauron, and it eventually split into three smaller kingdoms: Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur. These kingdoms themselves came apart following brutal wars against the Witch-King of Angmar. By the time period of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Eriador is largely a no-man's land save for a few small isolated polities such as the Shire, Rivendell, Bree and the Grey Havens.
• Vivere Militare Est, an Alternate History where the end of World War II was co-opted by the introduction of weaponized preternatural horrors by (who else?) Nazi Germany, has several examples:
  • Italy is split between North (Fascist-leaning rogue state) and South (member in good standing of the PCRA) Italy;
  • Yugoslavia was divided after WWII, between Nazi Germany-aligned Croatia and USSR-aligned Serbia (instead of imploding in the 90's);
  • Lebanon (between the Israel-occupied South and German-backed North), Jordan (split between a number of opposing factions due to Occult groups, Israel, and the government's inability to address either), Syria (whose southern tip seceded as Israel-backed Souadia — notice a pattern?);
  • Malaya and Kalimantan (North Borneo) never united to form Malaysia, though Brunei inverts the trope by having united with Kalimantan;
  • North and South Vietnam, whose war ended in a draw this time;
  • The biggest case would be China; not only is it divided between the Communist North and the Nationalist South, but several outlying regions were carved off: Sinkiang (a Soviet puppet), Manchukuo (a Japanese puppet), Taiwan (now part of Japan proper), and Tibet (never annexed due to Communists and Nationalists being more preoccupied by each other to bother).
  • Then there are the Middle African and Indian Containment Zones, both of which have collapsed into anarchy and are rife with warlords, micro-states, roving ethnic militias and cults, and all kinds of preternatural activity.
• In Without Warning, it's mentioned that France has become divided after the French Intifada. Also, there are several cities in Germany called "sharia towns", particularly Neu Koln, that have become independent entities de facto, if not de jure.
• In Wolfish Nature, Siberia has seceded from Russia. Not because of any ideological or political differences but because of the inevitable corruption of territories far away from the capital (the Siberian capital is established in Krasnoyarsk, much closer than Moscow). The two countries still maintain cordial relations and open borders. Alaska has likewise seceded from the US, although it's barely mentioned, and the reasons for the secession are unknown but likely the same. Canada is also mentioned to have split, although no official names of the two countries are mentioned (they're always referred to as "both Canadas"). There are also inverted examples, such as United Europe, Baltica (all the Baltic nations), Turan (an amalgamation of Turkey and Iran), and Sinojapan. There's also a Middle Eastern Coalition, but it's more like what EU is in Real Life than a government. It's a lot easier to find common ground when there are no pesky wars, atrocities, and genocides to mar relations, as there have been no wars on Earth for centuries. Ever since the Bio-Correction has removed the "wolf" gene from everyone.

Live-Action TV

• Happened multiple times to the Centauri Republic in the backstory of Babylon 5: after touching its greatest extent in the 1999-2047 period, the Centauri suffered two reductions of their empire. By the time of the series, about three quarters of the worlds they used to control at one point or the other (both conquered and colonies) are lost, with the largest chunk forming the hostile Narn Regime, others having joined other independents to form the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, others still independent and neutral, and Vega (whose only value for the Centauri was that it linked their core regions to the distant Denova) having been passed to Earth Alliance when Denova successfully rebelled.
• Game of Thrones: This came into play as part of the final outcome of the series. After the rise of Westeros' new monarch, Bran Stark, aka Bran the Broken, his sister Sansa Stark declares that the North no longer wishes to remain a part of the Seven Kingdoms, and wants to form it's own nation. The new sovereign readily agrees, in light of all that region has already sacrificed for the sake of the other lands of Westeros. Having successfully pled for independence, Sansa, last and only Stark to remain in Winterfell, is recognized by becoming the region's new leader, The Queen in the North.
• In the universe of Kamen Rider Build, Japan was split in three in 2007 when Pandora's Box, an artifact found on Mars, caused gigantic walls to erupt from the Earth. The three pieces ended up becoming their own nations: Touto (which adheres to traditional pacifism), Hokuto (which focuses on social welfare), and Seito (who focuses on economic recovery). The reason they haven't tried to reunify is because Pandora's Box released some kind of energy that altered the minds of everyone nearby, which included the three nations' future leaders, causing them to become more aggressive and paranoid; eventually it turns out that all three are secretly developing monsters and Kamen Riders to use as weapons for their attempts to invade each other.
• Revolution: In Episode 5, there is a map that shows that both Canada and Mexico have lost territory to the various nations that that make up what used to be the United States. For instance the California Commonwealth extends into both British Columbia and Baja California and the Monroe Republic not only comprises the northeastern quarter of the former US but also Quebec south of the St. Lawrence and the Maritime Provinces. There are no detail on the rest of those nations but presumably they've also broken up.
• Servant of the People: In Season 3, Ukraine collapses into 28 separate states. The President's task is to try to put the country back together without repeating past mistakes.
• Star Trek: Discovery: Because of a galaxy wide disaster that rendered most dillithium innert and thus limited warp travel in 30th century The Federation broke up going from over 300 members to just a few dozen. After a new source of dillithium was discovered, former members are slowly rejoining.
• Star Trek: Picard: Starfleet abandoned the evacuation of the Romulan population from their doomed homeworld because many species within The Federation were not happy about being forced to provide aid to their once mortal arch-foe and threatened to secede. The Admiralty cut their losses and recalled the Fleet after the Mars incident gave them ample justification.

Podcast

• It Could Happen Here: This is the ultimate fate of the United States in the narration segments of the podcast, where after a very chaotic and asymmetric Second American Civil War, the US is swept into squabbling broken states, some doing better than others, but all collectively worse off than they were before the war.

Tabletop Games

• The Free Worlds League in BattleTech had always been a unstable conglomerate of various kingdoms, but the effects of the Word of Blake Jihad, the realization that their leader was an impostor and that their real leader was a genocidal psychopath — resulted in the FWL shattering into a dozen feuding states.
  • The backstory also has the original Star League, which was shattered into the Successor Houses by the First Succession War.
• The Cyberpunk Tabletop series heavily features a Divided States of America with California notably experiencing Balkanization in the form dividing in half and the main setting of Night City, being in the North.
• One popular map for Diplomacy — particularly for email play — is a world map set in 1861 and including the Confederacy as a playable power. Also, many countries are divided into subunits for play purposes, so this is easy to do.
• Eberron had the kingdom of Galifar, which split into five nations due to a succession dispute. This was followed by an inconclusive war lasting 102 years, during which other lands seceded from the core five.
• GURPS Transhuman Space has a few examples, but probably the most balkanized country is Canada. The core of the country is still called Canada, and the rest are Quebec, Newfoundland, the Maritimes (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), Nunavut, the ABC Republic (Alberta and British Columbia), and the Free City of Montreal. Quebec, Newfoundland and the Maritimes are members of The European Union; ABC is a member of the Pacific Rim Alliance.
• Rifts, by comparison, partially avoids this only because most places are too wild to become nations, or the ones that do forms tend to quickly fill the old borders and then some. One notable exception being Japan, which is split into a High-tech time-displaced remnant of Pre-Rifts Japan, an anti-technology Empire of Samurai (who ironically, actually like the previously-mentioned Republic), a much meaner High-tech (with a smattering of Magitek) Shogunate, a kingdom of DemonsOni, and a few scattered nations besides.
• Risk. This is really only done to provide game balance, as there isn't really much backstory to a simple board game. The extent of Balkanization is rather vague in Risk 2210 A.D., where one might believe every single individual territory to be a separate country (which would also mean that several places are inversions, such as most of South America and Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia). The two Koreas are also reunited.
• Shadowrun in addition to suffering from the Divided States of America (and Canada) has a large amount of Balkanization occurring, mostly as the result of famine, disease, Post-Modern Magik favoring rebellious oppressed groups, and other such things. This allows Megacorporations to assume more power than national entities.
  • The rest of the world isn't much different: China has split into many smaller countries, Russia is split in half, and Africa is full of tribal "nations" no more then a few miles across.
    • The Alliance of German States is more downplayed. The AGS is still a cohesive polity and lays claim to all the territory of modern-day Germany, but the central government of the AGS is significantly weaker than that of the Bundesrepublik that preceded it, and acts more as a mediator in conflicts between the states and co-ordinator of the armed forces than a central government.
  • Despite all of this, some regions do invert the trend: Northern Latin America is mostly split between Amazonia (Brazil plus the Guianas, Venezuela and most of Colombia) and Aztlan (Mexico plus continental Central America and the rest of Colombia, plus Southwest Texas, and North Africa and the Middle East has The Algerian Theocracy (which includes Tunisia and most of Libya), Egypt (which absorbed the more Arab/Muslim parts of Sudan), The Saud Caliphate (which covers the whole Arabian peninsula, Kuwait and Jordan) and Iran/the Persian Empire (which absorbed Armenia, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and all the Central Asian republics save Kazakhstan).
• The Eldar Empire of Warhammer 40,000 spanned the entire galaxy before the heart of the empire was swallowed by the Eye of Terror. Some Eldar crewed independent, planet-sized spaceships called Craftworlds, some depraved individuals fled into the settlements in the Webway and formed a horrifying civilisation built on slavery and torture, some fled to worlds on the edges of the empire and formed Luddite colonies, and some simply took to roaming the galaxy as bands of raiders and pirates. The massive cultural differences which have emerged between these divergent Eldar factions over the millennia mean the Eldar race will probably never again be united as they used to be.
  • To a lesser extent but greater damage, the Imperium of Man. The predating empire was shattered when a galaxy-wide warp storm appeared out of nowhere and stayed for centuries, the galactic equivalent of every mile of ocean developing century-lasting hurricanes, preventing communication or trade between planets. Not helping matters was the Chaos plot to give the gift of psychics to unsuspecting humans, then laugh as they inadvertently summoned demonic invasions unless they were unfairly persecuted by witch hunts, thereby culling most forward-thinking technologically-advanced healthily-tolerant planets (with the only major exceptions being the planets that became HIGHLY susceptible to chaos when they put these psykers in charge and formed chaos-magic academies). This obliterated Earth, as it had become so polluted that it imported everything and went the path of Mad Max on steroids. Then the Emperor, an immortal Physical God (but one who DOESN'T consider himself a god due to being a mad science experiment gone right) built the first Space Marines, conquered and restored Earth, developed technology and starfleets, and waited for the storm to finally end (which was actually a bad thing because it heralded the birth of the new chaos goddess of lust). Then the Imperium began a great crusade, dominating millions of worlds and generally uniting most of humanity in the galaxy. And then, the chaos gods utterly won the Horus Heresy, shattering the Empire by dividing its fleets, crippling its Emperor, and indoctrinating all of humanity into a gods-worshiping mega-cult. The Imperium loses dozens of resource-rich planets every day to Chaos, Rebels, Tau, Genestealers, raving bands of Orks and Eldar and Necrons and whatever Games Workshop can come up with, and mostly its own Belief Makes You Stupid Knight Templar genocides.
  • The T’au Empire is mostly united, under the rule of the Ethereal Caste. But a segment of it called the Farsight Enclaves broke off from the Empires rule after the death of its last Ethereal. It’s uncertain weather Commander Farsight defected due to him wanting to be free from Ethereal control, or that he did it out of shame after the Ethereal he served died under his charge.

Video Games

• In Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, the fictional country of Cohdopia split for unspecified reasons into Allebahst and Babahl and was later reunited. As well, the Republic of Zheng Fa seems to be a splinter country from China.
• Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown: Following the climax of the second act, with the fall of its capital Farbanti being the last news out of Erusea before the entire continent loses all long-range communication, the former Hegemonic Empire shatters. At least one long-defunct kingdom declares its independence, and many regions become de facto micronations with the stationed military being the only authority able to do anything. It's heavily implied that even if Erusea continues to exist after the war, it'll only ever be a shadow of its former self.
• In After the End: A Post-Apocalyptic America, the United States of America is now no more than a distant memory. Not even many of the original states we'd recognise today still exist. Instead, a number of kingdoms and mini-nations have sprung up with their own distinct cultures and religions. The same is true for Mexico and Canada. Interestingly, the inverse is true for Central America and the Caribbean, as the islands have merged together into new, unified empires (though Word of God states that the mod is being set up so that this happens to those Caribbean nations during most games, once the Empress dies and the kin-slaying crown prince takes the throne). Also inverted for the United Kingdom, which over the centuries seems to have revived the British Empire and will be making an attempt to reclaim their colonies in North America.
  • It has also been long enough since the End that there have been time for empires to rise, stand mighty, and then fall. The Mahonics' New England at its height ruled from Buffalo to New Brunswick, but after they lost Hudsonia (more or less New York State sans New York City) their prestige was tarnished, and the defeat of a later attempted reconquest led to a series of wars and dynastic conflicts that by the start date has reduced the Mahonics' domain to the Boston metro area. The Empire of California took a different tack — technically, the Empire still exists as a vast domain, but in practice the Emperor is a figurehead barely ruling Sacramento, with the rest of the Empire split into warring lords that only nominally recognize the authority of the Emperor.
• The air-buccaneering game Crimson Skies — based on a tabletop game whose source books go into greater detail than the videogames — FASA (who created the tabletop game, as well as Battletech and Shadowrun) seem to love this trope — is set in a balkanized 1930s USA made up of several independent nations and micronations, as well as significant protectorates of European powers (mainly Britain and Germany). Russia has also split in the setting between White Russia and Red Russia who are both primarily focused on their own cold war they're having with each other.
• Crusader Kings — just as in the real Middle Ages, large kingdoms have an alarming tendency to fragment into independent states if the dukes and counts don't consider the king a worthy ruler. This sometimes happens peacefully, but sometimes not.
• Most major nations in Europa Universalis can be broken up into smaller constituent provinces. Furthermore as the game goes on, almost any nation that becomes a major power will inevitably wind up the owner of cores that can be released as independent nations as a result of wars or rebellions. For example, if you're playing as the English then this is your prime strategy for dealing with France, as the massive blue blob is comprised of dozens of releasable mini-countries that make up 75% of its vast territory; with strong allies (like Castile, Aragon, Austria or even Burgundy), good command and a little luck, you can reduce France to basically just Paris and the surrounding land, making them ripe for conquest or at least rendering them a non-factor in your empire-building elsewhere. Other frequent victims of this include the Mongols, the Timurids, the Ottomans, and Ming China.
• Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl has the Canadian province of Ontario as an independent kingdom. The rest of North America, and presumably the world, is in a similar state, Ontario is just the only one still going by its original name.
• A slow-burn version happens in the Fallout verse. After the bombs fell, the survivors reverted to tribalism and independent cities, but by the time of New Vegas several larger powers have begun to emerge across the former U.S.: the New California Republic has spread across the western area (California, Nevada, Oregon), while Caesar's Legion has conquered the southwest (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico). In the midst of their clash at the Hoover Dam, Mr. House wants to establish the Mojave as its own state free of them both. Meanwhile, on the East Coast, a group calling themselves the Minutemen are working to unify the numerous settlements around the Boston area.
• In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the continent of Fódlan was once completely dominated by the Empire of Adrestia. After approximately 750 years, a rebellion in the north led to the creation of the Kingdom of Faerghus, and then a scant 50 years later, Adrestia further balkanized when the eastern Leicester region also seceded, forming the Leicester Alliance. For another 50 years, Leicester found itself being invaded and annexed by Faerghus until they were able to seize the opportunity to kick the invaders out and become a true independent nation. The end of each route of the game sees the continent reunited once more under the banner of whichever nation Byleth chooses to side with.
• In mobile game Galimulator empires slowly fracture into smaller empires as time passes.
• Global Domination, a game based on the computer game James Bond plays in Never Say Never Again, splits Australia in two and Russia, the USA, China and Canada in several pieces, more for gameplay reasons than anything else. Many smaller nations are swept up into bigger ones for the same reasons.
• Hearts of Iron mods provide a lot of examples:
  • Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg has several instances of this:
    • Just like the main game, Divided States of America is in full effect, though now it's a 4-way civil war. The US itself under the military command of Douglas MacArthur, the syndicalist Combined Syndicates of America in the steel belt, the far-right American Union State in the south, and the remains of American democracy in the form of the Pacific States of America on the west coast. New England can even be annexed by the Dominion of Canada "for its protection".
    • Due to Germany winning the Weltkrieg and Whites winning the Russian Civil War, the Soviet Union was never formed, so the newly-formed Russian Republic had to cede territory to the German Empire, which gave limited self-government to local peoples and included them in its military alliance.
    • Italy broke into 5 states in 1919: The Papal States, The Republic of Italy, The Socialist Republic of Italy, the Kingdom of Two Sicilies and the Entente-allied Kingdom of Sardinia.
    • India has been split into 3 territories: The British-controlled Dominion of India, the syndicalist Bharatiya Commune, and the Princely Federation, which operates under the old Raj system.
    • China is still split into more than a dozen warlords.
    • Mittelafrika doesn't start out as this, but it's particularly infamous for lasting a short time and eventually collapsing into so many countries at once computers have been lagbombed to a full, if brief, halt, leaving a giant pile of twenty or more countries that try to kill each other from the word Go.
  • In the Equestria at War mod for Hearts of Iron IV, the nation of Equestria starts out as one giant united nation. It is possible however for a civil war to erupt through events, which splits the country in two between supporters of Princess Celestia and supporters of Princess Luna, with several regions breaking away and forming their own nations.
  • The New Order Last Days Of Europe mod for Hearts of Iron IV takes to extremes:
    • After a successful Operation Sea Lion, Great Britain is divided into England, Wales, Scotland, and a Nazi-occupied Cornwall.
    • The Soviet Union has shattered into dozens of warlords with most of them having a shot at re-unifying the country under every ideology in the game ... or collapsing back into yet more warlords.
    • The collaborationist Republic of China de jure controls all of China except for Japanese-controlled Manchukuo and Guangdong, but de facto only has authority over eastern China. The rest are independent warlords Still Wearing the Old Colors, Japanese fiefdoms, and rebels.
    • India is divided between the Republic of India and Azad Hind, both facing minority revolts.
    • The Iberian Union can collapse into more than a dozen factions, with some seeking independence like the Basques and Catalonia. Their African colonies also break away.
    • The decolonization of Nazi-ruled Central Africa can result in the emergence of dozens of new statelets, either through successful nation-building by the US or the complete and utter collapse of colonial authority.
• Homeworld: Happened to the Taiidani Imperium after the events of the first game, courtesy of the Succession Crisis and power vacuum created by the death of the Emperor. Various factions tried to seize control of the empire by force, while others chose to carve out their own smaller fiefdoms, and by the time the dust had settled the newly-founded Taiidani Republic was a quarter the size of its predecessor. Several large chunks of the rest are ruled by "Imperial loyalist" factions with ambitions to restore the old empire under one banner once more, but attempts to pool their resources and mount a joint attack are hamstrung by the fact that few of the leaders of said factions are interested in any plan whose end-goal isn't to put them on the throne. One thing they can mostly agree on is their grudge against the Hiigarans, setting up the plot of Homeworld: Cataclysm.
• Knights of Honor seems to start out this way, because the starting point is the Early Middle Ages, and Europe is very fractionated at this time. As playing time progresses the nations grow ever larger, however political unrest, the death of a ruler or religious revolts can result in entire nations fractionating into independent provinces.
• In Mace: The Dark Age, this happens all over Europe and the Middle-East due to Christianity and Islam never being founded to unify their countries, leaving them fragmented between countless tribes and pagan faiths. This is enforced by the Covenant of the Seven, who are using Divide and Conquer to leave them weakened to their control.
• Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake has Zanzibarland, which was one of the many splinter countries of the former Soviet Union (keep in mind that this game was released before the actual fall of the Soviet Union).
  • This is the vision of the villain in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; by selling accessible nuclear programs to every nation and extremist group and disrupting global communications with a bioweapon that kills based on the languages its victims speak, the whole world would be balkanized. While this would end every oppressive empire in the world, they would be replaced with hundreds of cult-driven states even more divided than during the feudal eras, all similar due to their dependence on nuclear deterrence and violence through Metal Gears, yet incapable of unifying or even temporarily cooperating without destroying themselves from the vocal cord parasite plague or getting nuked by their neighbors.
• In Shattered Union Washington DC was destroyed by a terrorist attack and the states divided into 6 factions with the European Union occupying the remains of DC, Hawaii staying neutral, and Alaska being invaded by Russia.
• Singularity: In one ending, assassinating the dictator of the formerly world-conquering USSR and destroying the only means of researching the unobtainium for time travel causes the nation to utterly shatter into tiny city-states that make all its previous balkanizations combined look like a haircut.
• Star Trek Online: After the Romulan Star Empire had its heart cut out by the destruction of Romulus and Remus in the Hobus System supernova (see Star Trek (2009)) the rest of the Empire fragmented into at least three factions. The current Romulan Star Empire is a military dictatorship led by Empress Sela and the Tal Shiar, while the Romulan Republic, the faction for Romulan player characters, is a democratic alliance of Romulans and Remans who want peace. There's also a Reman resistance movement that is part Space Pirate, part La Résistance, seeking to liberate their species from Romulan rule no matter the cost; they're allies of the Republic.
  • After the events of 'Romulan Mystery' (a series of missions shared between all three player factions), it is indicated that the Star Empire is fragmenting again in the absence of Sela and with the Tal Shiar having suffered severe losses, including their leader. No detail on the new fragmentation has yet been provided in-game, as the only one to even talk about this third collapse of the Empire is the leader of the Reman Resistance, and he only mentions it when it has just begun. Word of God has indicated that as of the current 'now' of the game, the Star Empire has been reduced to a handful of hold-out colonies... which means this trope is being reversed, as the Romulan Republic is now firmly established as the dominant power in Romulan space.
• Stellaris:
  • This trope is a typical result of a successful slave or AI revolt: the rebels form a new empire, which is hostile to former oppressors and can often go to war with them. Despite being behind at first glance, newborn empire gets some fleets to defend itself, so the war result is usually uncertain. A multiple number of such revolts can break unfortunate empire almost completely, or at least weaken it enough to make an easy prey for other galactic powers.
  • There is also a way to weaponise the process yourself: an empire with "Feudal Society" civic can create semi-independent vassal empires that, unlike other vassal states, retain more significant autonomy in their internal affairs, so you can concentrate on your own development, while not worrying about your subjects loyalty^note as "Feudal Society" civic removes any loyalty loss from having multiple vassals.
  • Also, this is the inevitable end for two powerful empires that can exist for a while in someone's galaxy:
    • The Feudal Empire with the "Imperial Liege" origin starts the game with a huge head start in technology, economy and fleet strength, as well as with a certain number of vassals who will be almost completely dependent on their overlord at first. However, the latter behaves very passively, largely taking advantage of the lack of competition and enjoying its prosperity. Therefore, it is not surprising that the very first Succession Crisis leads to a total collapse of the empire, which disintegrates not into 2-3 possessions of dynastic claimants to the throne, but completely - practically every planet of the former empire forms its own separate state.
    • The Marauder Horde led by the Great Khan will last as long as the Great Khan themself. Once the powerful unifier and legendary admiral dies, the Horde will most likely break up into several splinters, led by the Diadochi, each of whom will consider themself the true heir of the Great Khan.
• The backstory of Strike Commander describes how every superpower in the world has disintegrated into its component states, including (but not limited to) the Divided States of America. Fighting then breaks out among these new countries almost immediately, while the remnants of the original superpower governments struggle to reconquer their old territories.
• Supreme Ruler 2020 has done this with pretty much the entire world (though some countries are slightly bigger, such as Belgium and Luxembourg forming one country).
• In Technobabylon, the US has fallen apart into separate states and territories, many of which are ruled by warlords. We aren't given many details on what happened, but a news article mentions that two of the states are arguing over which of them should be allowed to compete in the coming Olympics using the old American flag. One of the main characters is also a refugee from Texas.

Web Originals

• The world of Atlas Altera has at least twice as many countries as ours does, probably more. Mainland Papua and Australia each have more than 50 countries, not including islands surrounding them. The British Isles alone have nine countries.
• Parodied and taken to the illogical extreme in the AlternateHistory.com timeline Leaves in the Wind, which records the Balkanization of Liechtenstein!
• In CalBear's The Anglo/American – Nazi War several OTL nations are TTL divided:
  • Indonesia is coming into several states.
  • Per the treaty of Barcelona, Germany is to be forever divided in 15 authonomous regions, on pain of being nuked.
  • France's coastal regions, along with its colonial empire, are now separated from the former metropole.
  • Ukraine has being halved into West and East.
  • Russia is divided into a resurgent Russian Tsarist Republic, a vestigial Soviet Union located in Siberia and a Western Alaska in Eastern Siberia.
• Capto Iugulum: Happens to Hungary, the United States, Kongo, the Franco-Burgundian Confederation (although it reunifies), Spain, and British South Africa over the course of the NES.
• The Chaos Timeline does this to North America Atlantis, and sometimes China, France and Russia. And even New Albion (New Zealand).
• The Death of Russia: At first, the only division in Russia following the National Salvation Front's coup against Yeltsin's government is the remnant of the latter managing to set up a barely functional Government in Exile in Kaliningrad. But then the NSF splinters between its fascist and communist factions, which turn on each other and set up rival governments in Petrograd (the "Republic of the Russians") and Stalingrad (the "Russian Soviet Republic"), dividing European Russia between them, followed by ethnic/nationalist uprisings in the Caucasus and Urals; with this cutting off Asian Russia off from the industrial base in Europe, the whole region collapses into anarchy, with various warlords and factions of varying levels of legitimacy springing up everywhere. By the end of the civil war only eight nations are left standing — the Kaliningrad government, Ichkeria, Dagestan, Ossetia, Circassia, Siberia, the Far Eastern Kingdom and Kalmykia. Tuva ended up annexed into Mongolia thanks to Shoigu's monumentally bad military leadership, Buryatia ended up split between Siberia and the Far East, and Yakutia was (largely) peacefully reincorporated into Siberia. Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Udmurtia, Mari El, the Komi Republic and both NSF factions all meet their tragic ends following the 4/10 nuclear exchange, while European Russia is a UN Mandate nominally under Kaliningrad's rule.
• Decades of Darkness starts with the USA falling apart, and later France, Italy and Britain will meet the same fate after being defeated by Germany in the Great War.
• For All Time has too many examples to list fully.
  • After World War II, Germany is divided into three states and Hokkaido becomes the Soviet-backed People's Republic of Japan.
  • Israel is strangled in its crib and the land is divided between Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.
  • The Italian Civil War results in the independence of Sicily and Sardinia, while mainland Italy becomes a Communist state and eventually splits into north and south by the end of the 20th century.
  • Yugoslavia is carved up by its neighbors following the Soviet's nuking of Zagreb.
  • France loses Brittany, Corsica, the Saarland, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon. After General-turned-Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa dies, the country collapses into half a dozen states.
  • After an independence referendum in 1971, England secedes from the United Kingdom.
  • China and the Soviet Union both collapse after a series of nuclear conflicts in the 1970's.
  • Canada, Indonesia, and Turkey also break apart over the course of the timeline.
• The Alternate History project Ill Bethisad has only Russia as the only real Space-Filling Empire. Both Brazil and China are broken up into smaller states and the USA are a looser union than in OTL. Here's a map.◊
• The New Deal Coalition Retained timeline has a couple of examples:
  • The US-backed invasion of Cuba leads to the creation of the Federal Republic of Cuba (East Cuba) and the Socialist Republic of Cuba (West Cuba). In 1980, an uprising in West Cuba leads to the collapse of the communist government and the two countries' reunification.
  • After Czechoslovakia's government becomes pro-Western in the 60s and chooses to join NATO, the Slovakian communists secede from the country and stick with the Warsaw Pact, letting the Czechs go their own way. And then inverted post-WWIII, as Slovakia is defeated and forcibly reunited with the Czechs.
  • When Zambia ends up on the losing side of the Central African War, it gets carved up, with most of its territory being absorbed by Angola, Zaire, and Malawi, with the remnant becoming the New Lozi Kingdom.
  • After Iran is defeated in World War III, most of its border regions are stripped away by its neighbors, though the bulk of the country's interior is left untouched.
  • After Romania is defeated in WWIII, several provinces are carved out to recreate Transylvania as a free kingdom.
  • After WWIII, the Soviet Union goes under this even more heavily than in real life. In addition to all the SSRs being granted independence, the resulting civil war results in Russia being heavily divided between Moscow (which becomes a UN-run independent city), the Republic of Yakutia, Tatarstan, the People’s Republic of Baryutia, the Communonationalist Republic of Green Ukraine (OTL Amur Oblast), the Kingdom of Free Altai, the Khanate of Baskortostan, the Russian Republic of Samara, the Kingdom of Kalmykia, the Komi Social Democratic Republic, the Mari El Khanate, the Federal Republic of Mordovia, the Udmurt State, Chuvashia, the Republic of Nenets, the Republic of Khakassia, the Chelyabinsk Democratic Khanate, the National Siberian State of Russian Peoples (Zhirinovsky's fascist government), the Soviet of Volga (Soviet rump state in the Urals), and the Free Russian Republic (European Russia). Additionally, parts of Siberia are annexed by China, Japan, and the US (who run their territories like Puerto Rico), and other territories are annexed by the Ukrainian Hetmanate, Beloryssia, the new Timurid Empire, and Tannu Tuva.
  • To prevent civil war and genocide in the region, Rwanda is carved out of Uganda and divided among ethnic lines into the micro nations of Hutuland and the Republic of Tutsi Peoples.
  • In the chaos consuming South America post-WWIII, Uruguay collapses into a collection of bickering warlord fiefdoms (leading to Spain eventually invading in order to restore order), while Brazil undergoes a Civil War that ends with the Amazon territories being granted freedom under the control of indigenous peoples militias (as the main government doesn't have the resources to keep fighting them).
  • During the Great Southern War, Tanzania loses territory to Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, India, and a once-again independent Zanzibar (the latter causes the country to change its name back to Tanganyika).
  • In the early 2000s, years of cultural conflict between Belgium's Francophone and Flemish populations lead to a referendum that results in the Walloon region separating from Belgium and instead joining France.
• The Russian Nightmare is a speculative near-future post about how Russia might divide itself up through infighting by 2030 if Putin were to suddenly die in 2024 — his government has been reduced to a rump in the region surrounding Moscow, the democratic opposition is struggling to set up a new stable government out of St. Petersburg, ultranationalists who felt Putin didn't go far enough have taken over southern European Russia, the Far East is being led by a resurgent Communist Party, an oligarch has seized power in the oil-rich north, and the Caucasus, Urals, and Siberia have all gone independent.
• Twilight Of The Red Tsar has a few examples:
  • China breaks apart completely during the Sino-Soviet War. What's left is a PRC rump, a southeastern part controlled by the KMT, an independent Tibet, a series of Soviet satellites in the Northern parts and a Taoist extremist group that rules over Chongqing. Eventually, the KMT takes over most of the country and destroys both the Taoist extremists and the PRC, and finally reunifies China after decades of bloody fighting.
  • Soviet-occupied Austria is broken off to form a Soviet satellite state. This prompts West Germany and West Austria to unite into one country, which is then joined by East Germany after the fall of the Iron Curtain, with East Austria remaining independent.
  • During the Soviet Civil War, rebels capture most of north and central Russia, roughly all of Siberia east of the Yenisei River, a large chunk of the Urals, and the SSRs outside of Belarus and Central Asia.
• Union and Liberty includes the balkanization of Mexico into a dozen states.

Western Animation

• Futurama shows that this has happened to the US over the past thousand years in some of the few map shots we get. For instance, apparently a Velvet Revolution divided the Penn Republic and Sylvania. Doesn't stop Fry and co. from going on cross-continental trips.
• In The Legend of Korra, the murder of the Queen of the Earth Kingdom by an anarchist group causes chaos throughout the Earth Kingdom, causing it to divide into several impoverished states and harassed by bandits.

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