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Welcome everyone, today I’ll talk about the Scandinavian region. Part of it was the first maps we drew for Project Caesar back in early spring of 2020. Today we will look at all parts of the Scandinavian Peninsula (including Denmark & the Kola Peninsula). Greenland & Iceland will be looked at in a separate map talk.
Countries
Scandinavia has only five location based countries at the start of the game. Denmark, who is in a bit of a crisis at the moment and their vassal Schleswig is in the south. On the peninsula proper, we have Sweden and Norway who are in a union at the moment as they share the same King. Scania was sold off to Sweden by the Danes five years before the start of the game.
There is no need to show off a Dynasty map, as Denmark does not exactly have a ruling King at the moment, and the rest is ruled by Magnus IV of the Bjälbo Dynasty.
Locations
While Scandinavia has a lot of locations, we have to remember that this is a huge area, and together with Kola & Karelia, it is the same size as France, Spain, Portugal, Italy & Benelux together.. The size of locations are smaller in the south, particularly where the population was and still is relatively bigger.
Provinces
We have tried to follow historical traditional province borders here, but some ended up too big like Småland, Lappland or Österbotten, which were cut into pieces, and some are just too tiny to matter.
Now I wish I had time to write up a history about each province here, but I’ll just add a few fun tidbits.
Satakunta, which is the Finnish name, is named in Finnish like the old regions of Svitjod, which were divided into “hundreds”. It was also refered to Björneborgs län, named after Björneborg (Pori in Finnish), a town founded by Johan III when Ulfsby was no longer accessible from the sea. The regiment from the area was the last Swedish Army Regiment that has ever won a battle inside Sweden, and their military march is a song I think every Finnish Citizen want to play repeatedly on TV during the Olympics..
Småland, which is divided into Tiohärad and Kalmar Län here, should really be referred to as Småländerna, as there were 12 small countries there.. Compared to the 3 other much larger countries of Svealand, Östra Götaland and Västra Götaland. And now why is Östra Götaland not containing Kinda?
Topograhy
It's mostly flatland.. I went by the rule that if the peaks are less than 500 meters it's flatland, and you need to have over 1,000 meters and rather uneven to be a mountain. Norway is interesting there.. We do have a lot of impassable areas in Norway, making this one of the most fun parts to play in.
Vegetation
There are some farmlands in Denmark, Scania and in Götaland, but the rest is basically a big forest.. And up north it's even worse.
Climate
Yeah, well. There is a reason I moved to Spain..
Cultures
Most of the north east is still Sami, and the Finnish tribes have not unified into the more modern Finnish culture. We decided to call the modern Meänkieli with their more ancient name of Kven. We still have Gutnish on Gotland, but the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish cultures have been becoming more monolithic already.
Religions
The Finnish are mostly Catholic, but the Sami, Tavastian, Savonia, Bjarmian and Karelians are mostly still following their old pagan beliefs. There are still some Norse people in the forests of Dalarna and Västmanland..
Raw Materials
It is mostly lumber, fish, wild game, fur and iron. We of course have the famous copper mountain as well.
Markets
Scandinavia is divided by the rich markets of Lübeck and Riga. A strong Scandinavian country will probably want to set up their own unified market.
Population
Not many people live up in the north..
I liked nice round numbers as estimates, but the team I hired for content design are mad men, and wanted the distribution to feel more organic.. For the far north of Scandinavia we know that people were semi nomadic, and that some people lived there.. But if it was 100 there, or 250 there or 20 there it's just guesswork..
And let's end with a quote from the Greatest of Poets..
Jag vill, jag skall bli frisk, det får ej prutas,
Jag måste upp, om jag i graven låg.
Lyss, hör, ni hör kanonerna vid Jutas;
Där avgörs finska härens återtåg.
From a Dutch perspective, those are mountains… From a Sardinian perspective, I’d say hills. Someone made a suggestion to include rolling hills to make flatland-hills not so steep of a separation. That would be best.
I think it depends on what one perceives as flat or hilly from where they grew up. The picture you replied to makes no sense for my eyes to be flatland, but I can imagine if you grow up next to mountains that it’s nothing. Though there is clearly a difference between literally flat and some elevation and variety in the terrain, which imo should be implemented.
As a Dane I had mainly been looking at Denmark, and it was hard to really argue with Flatlands here (except there should probably be more wetlands) but looking further afield I must say I find it mindboggling that e.g Vadehavet is classified the same as the undulations and islands of the Stockholm region or the Oslo fjord.
I get that there are limits to granularity, but since “flatlands” are popular places to settle, it seems like the kind of terrain where a bit of extra subdivisions (rolling, broken) and/or some representation of water features like islets, rivers and fjords would be meaningful.
As a Dane I had mainly been looking at Denmark, and it was hard to really argue with Flatlands here (except there should probably be more wetlands) but looking further afield I must say I find it mindboggling that e.g Vadehavet is classified the same as the undulations and islands of the Stockholm region or the Oslo fjord.
I get that there are limits to granularity, but since “flatlands” are popular places to settle, it seems like the kind of terrain where a bit of extra subdivisions (rolling, broken) and/or some representation of water features like islets, rivers and fjords would be meaningful.
I agree, some in-between terrain type for hills and flatlands (or between hills and mountains).
If a terrain is rolling enough that blocking the path with piles of wood has been a viable military strategy historically, I don't exactly think you can call it flat!
First of all, there's bound to be several things that have been said already, so fair warning. Secondly, there will be some weird grammar or spelling mistakes I have missed.
With that out of the way, here's some feedback on mainly modern Denmark.
Political situation
Really, Denmark shouldn’t exist as a political entity in 1337 (maybe as legal fiction facade internationally (as lip-service to exiled Valdemar by i.e. Louis V of Brandenburg and Louis IV Holy Roman Emperor), but not in fact). Even in 1340, Valdemar IV only got an agreement to control the 1/4th most northerly part of Jutland - Aalborg and Vendsyssel island. The “re-unification” was a sordid affair of conquest, buy-out, bribery, coercion, diplomacy and lofty oaths - all the tools of the trade. Valdemar seems to have been uniquely competent because he was educated in the imperial HRE court.
I refer to Boxtrot and their brilliant maps (#509) for the actual de-facto control in 1337. Do bear in mind though that the Holsteiners were mostly interested in extracting taxes and other revenues, there seems to be little evidence they had any interest in economic development, trade or law - so the actual day-to-day control in smaller towns probably varied greatly. Among the people, there seems to have been general unrest as well as economic problems and bad harvests. Finds of coin hoards indicate inflation and overproduction in the 1320s (i.e. a lack of confidence in the value of the coinage).
Kongemagtens krise. Det danske møntvæsen 1241-1340. p. 255
Estonia is in a tricky situation. With no king, there was no royal administrator. The duke was in prison (although mostly it was just a prestige absentee title). The best information I could find suggests Danish Estonia was ruled by a council of nobles and burghers in Reval, with some low intensity-conflict with the Bishop of Reval (not as anarchic as mainland Denmark). Definitely not under very centralized control, so some form of vassalage seems appropriate, but debatable whether it should be a theocracy or oligarchy or nominal Duchy, as it swore fealty to Valdemar very quickly (although how this manifested in actual control I do not know, as Valdemar never went to Estonia, and only prioritized Estonia enough to put in new administrators before the 1346 sale).
Danmarkshistorie Som nationalhistorisk museum forsker vi i Danmarkshistoriens vigtige begivenheder og aktører samt historiske og kulturhistoriske epoker. Sigtet er at sætte Danmarkshistorien i et aktuelt eller alment oplysende perspektiv, gerne ved at anskue historien i en bredere international...
dnm.dk
Blog Post #8 by the Danish National History Museum
All of this unfolding even remotely historically with a Holsteiner-controlled Denmark is probably hard for the game to simulate though, so maybe it’s a “situation” or something that can be crafted more in-depth later in the game’s development cycle.
Locations
Those without a number next to the name are from before 1350.
From: Historisk Atlas Danmark 1988
Legend/explainer:
Map:
Jutland
Silkeborg was only just a castle at this time, under the Bishop of Aarhus. The town is mostly an entirely different thing, founded in the 1800s. I suggest calling it Ry, as that was a more important and actually populated town in 1337. But Silkeborg is OK too, there’s already Kalø (Castle), although that had a greater strategic importance. Either way, I think it makes sense for it to be the single woods vegetation location in Denmark, as the uneven landscape made farming much less efficient back then.
I højmiddelalderen skete der en befolkningsvækst, der førte til en betydelig skovrydning og anlæggelse af nye bebyggelser. Mange af disse forsvandt dog igen i senmiddelalderen, hvilket antagelig delvis hang sammen med sandflugt i området. Hovederhvervet var landbrug, derudover har der fundet...
Landskabet i Silkeborg Kommune er overvejende formet af is og smeltevand under sidste istid. Hovedstilstandslinjen, der angiver ydergrænsen for Nordøstisens udbredelse for 23.000‑20.000 år siden, gennemskærer den vestligste del af kommunen fra nord til syd.
Det nuværende kommuneområde var i perioden tæt bebygget. Ved middelalderens begyndelse lå bebyggelsesstrukturen rimelig fast, men nye landsbyer opstod, og jord blev inddraget til agerbrug. Området blev i senmiddelalderen flere gange ramt af pest, men befolkningstallet steg samlet set gennem...
trap.lex.dk
Ringkøbing should be were Bølling is. Former Ringkøbing location should be Lemvig (even on a medieval Danish scale, very small town, but it existed).
De skriftlige kilder er tavse om Ringkøbings ældste historie, men der er fundet mønter og keramik fra 1200-tallets anden halvdel. Gadenettet er systematisk anlagt, hvilket er karakteristisk for 1200-tallets byer.
Lemvig er opstået i tidlig middelalder. Det præcise tidspunkt for byens grundlæggelse kendes ikke, men den nævnes første gang i 1234. De ældst kendte købstadsprivilegier er fra 1545. Byen havde hverken kloster elleranden stiftelse, der kunne sætte sit præg på udviklingen i middelalderen, hvor...
Selv om nogle landsbyer gik tilbage til tidlig middelalder, opstod der i højmiddelalderen en lang række nye landsbyer som følge af befolkningsvækst. Denne blev dog bremset af pest fra midten af 1300-tallet. Hovederhvervet var landbrug, og eksport af først heste, siden okser spillede en vigtig...
trap.lex.dk
The Grindsted location is placed in probably the least densely populated area in Denmark, then as well as now. I would suggest having the neighboring locations partition it and make room for another location somewhere more important. If it has to stay, I would suggest renaming it to Vorbasse instead, as that place probably had more than a few farmsteads and was a slightly important settlement in the Viking Age. Even that was a small hamlet though, so alternatively name it after the two main Herred divisions that it partially overlaps – Nørvang and Hammerum. A third option would be Sønder Omme, as it maybe (!) had more population before the Black Death (”important” enough to be its own parish the 14th century), but was almost completely empty except for the Church in the 1800s. In general, it seems likely that this area and most other small settlements in Western Jutland were gradually abandoned in the 14th century, due to bad harvests (weather, sandy soil, overgrazing, lack of manpower due to the plague). Migrant workers (if they were not tenants, or they were but weren't caught) would have been drawn to bigger towns in the East and North, a process already underway in 1337. Most of the hamlets were only resettled in the 18th or usually 19th century… or not at all.
Området var i perioden tyndt befolket, og bebyggelsen lå forholdsvis spredt. Op gennem middelalderen skete der antagelig ikke de store ændringer i befolkningstallet, dog med en mindre tilbagegang i løbet af 1300-tallet og med vækst i periodens slutning, hvor der opstod en række nye småbebyggelser.
Grindsted bestod i begyndelsen af 1800-tallet kun af fire gårde langs åen og en kirke, der stammer fra middelalderen. I 1842 fik man en embedslæge, og samme år åbnede et apotek. Da landevejen mellem Vejle og Varde blev anlagt i årene 1862‑67, blev kontakten til omverdenen nemmere.
trap.lex.dk
See also sources on rural depopulation and population shift at the end of the post
Schleswig / Southern Jutland
Firstly, Husum is a great pick, it was really important economically in this period.
The topography of Ribe is hard to narrowly place between flatlands and marsh, as it has both. Given the thin coastal layout, however, I think marsh makes more sense.
Nord for Tøndermarsken er der foretaget flere andre store inddigninger. Ballummarsken med et marskareal på 35 km2 blev inddiget i perioden 1914-19. Den nordfor liggende Rejbymarsk blev inddiget i 1923-25 af et ca. 13 km langt dige, der beskytter et område på ca. 29 km2. Længere nordpå finder man...
naturenidanmark.lex.dk
The southern part of the Ribe location, Between Højer and Rudbøl, should have an inlet as well (the former Vidå river delta in a state without drainage canals, diversions, pumps and sluices). The modern dikes and ”kog”s (artificial landmasses, reclaimed land) are from much later. As for how it should look there, I would say go with the inlet layout in ” Landtcarte vom Sudertheil des Hertzogthumbes Schleswieg Anno 1650”, as it's the most geographically detailed and probably accurate for most of the period.
For Nakskov and Lolland-Falster more broadly, I would as a lower priority suggest adding a second location called Rødby to the East, as this was an important port of entry for goods and a connecting point for smaller-scale Hanseatic goods (Skanør and Copenhagen were the big marketplaces for Hanseatic and some Baltic and Russian trade).
Zealand
In Zealand, I would rename Ringsted to Vordingborg, as this had much greater political importance at this time, being where negotiations with the Teutonic Order, the Hansa took place and some military expeditions were started from (Ringsted was more important in the 11th and early 12th century).
Vordingborg Slot er i dag nok mest kendt for Gåsetårnet, men i middelalderen var det Danmarks største kongeborg, hvorfra kongen udøvede magt og regerede Danmark.
Ved indgangen til middelalderen var der mange bebyggelser i området, og med ophøret af truslen fra venderne sydfra opstod der også bebyggelser i kystegnene. I løbet af middelalderen skete der en befolkningsvækst, der dog stagnerede eller gik tilbage i senmiddelalderen.
trap.lex.dk
I would also suggest adding København (Copenhagen) as its own location, since the town had been around for over 200 years at this point Roskilde was still important in 1337, but on its way to stagnate somewhat, so if no new location can be added, I would just rename for long-term importance. Others have suggested renaming Kalundborg to Korsør, which is a curious case. Much like Ringsted, Kalundborg had already ”peaked”, whereas Korsør would become much more important in the Early Modern period. Imo either can work.
Funen
In Funen, I would #1 add Nyborg: This is a must-have. The castle and town hosted the usually nobility-led medieval Danish council/parliament Danehof, still in use for almost another 100 years after 1337 before the more monarch-led Rigråd served much the same function later.
Secondarily I would add Svendborg or Faaborg (both roughly equally important/non-important in medieval times), so that the Southern Islands (Ærø, Langeland etc.) have a location that is close enough by to plausibly administrate them (muh immershun).
Odense is definitely a must, but if location density is a problem, I think axing Assens and giving it to Odense is OK.
Provinces and Areas
Not much to add that hasn't already been said. Nørrejylland province should be Himmerland.
All Jutland provinces including Vendsyssel, but excluding Sønderjylland and Slesvig, should be in the Nørrejylland area (maybe they already are, but there is still no area map as of me posting this).
Inlets
You have most of the inlets covered in Jutland, but are missing Randers and Mariager ”fjords” (inlets) and the Schlei.
In Funen, Odense Fjord is not visible.
In Zealand, the Isefjord is visible, but Roskilde Fjord is not.
Culture
Consider adding 10 % Slavic (”Wendic” that is West Lechitic speaking Slavs: Obdorite, Lutici, Rani (Rügians)) – probably Slavic Pommeranian closest game equivalent [Post HRE map addendum: Polabian]) minority in Nakskov/Lolland. Evidence of this settlement comes from earlier written sources speaking of Wendish pirates, Slavic place names and pottery. There are also sources speaking of problems with pirates in the straits/belts in the 1300s (mentioned 1339), but it is unknown whether they are Slavic pirates, homegrown Danish pirates, German pirates (and there were Norwegian raids in the early 1300s).
Convivencia in a Borderland: The Danish-Slavic Border in the Middle Ages - Magdalena Naum
Dansk skattehistorie. Bind 1 : Danmarks skatter i middelalderen indtil 1340 p. 276
Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie. Bind 17 : Danmark i tal - Register, 2005 p. 110
Some Slavic migrants probably also existed on Bornholm around the time of the Ottonian conquests to the end of the reign of Duke Bogislaw II, but it is likely they had assimilated in 1337.
Ambiguous pots: Everyday practice, migration and materiality. The case of medieval Baltic ware on the island of Bornholm (Denmark) -
Magdalena Naum
There should probably be at least a few hundred German (mainly Lübeckians, secondarily Rostockians) merchants (burghers) concentrated around Copenhagen, Skanør and Lolland (Nakskov). Skanør probably more actually, as German merchants of different towns had their own "fed"s or market-districts where they were by royal decree allowed to freely speak German.
Late Medieval Migration across the Baltic: The Movement of People between Northern Germany and Denmark Bjørn Poulsen
Vesteuropa, Lybæk og dansk handel i senmiddelalderen, Historisk tidsskrift, 1991
Saltede sild fra Øresund var en af middelalderens største danske eksportvarer, der blev solgt overalt i middelalderens Europa fra Rusland til Sicilien. Sildene blev fanget om efteråret ud for halvøen Skanør i Skåne, hvor handlen med sild og det nødvendige salt til sildens konservering var...
Legumes in Aarhus – I do not know what this is based on, seems odd. Fava beans were not cultivated this extensively from what I could find, mostly in small private gardens or monasteries. I suggest replacing with Sturdy Grains (Peasants paid a ”Plough tax” to the Bishop of Aarhus in Barley in 1312) or Wheat (more viable later on with better drainage knowledge).
Dansk skattehistorie. Bind 1 : Danmarks skatter i middelalderen indtil 1340 p. 259
Bølling (Vorbasse) salt change to livestock (main trade was the raising and trading of cattle).
Holstebro wheat – the area was characterized by grazing and hay agriculture with small supporting handicrafts on wet meadows (some sandy soil, some clay). Much of the geographic area contained in the location would not be capable of consistently producing wheat until much later. Alternatives: Horses, sturdy grains, livestock.
Landsbystrukturen lå stort set fast ved indgangen til middelalderen, og en befolkningsvækst førte til anlæggelse af nye landsbyer i perioden. I 1100- og 1200-tallet rejstes også en lang række stenkirker. Pesten i ca. 1350 førte til et kraftigt fald i befolkningen og til ødegårde.
trap.lex.dk
”Heste i Holstebro 1485-1521: Senmiddelalderlig byhistorie i et handelsmæssigt perspektiv”
Salt in Aalborg is OKish, but only for the sake of variety (it was not carrying that much economic weight). There was salt extracted from seaweed at Hou, a process that doesnt yield great quantities. There was a lively fish salting practice in the region, but I would call that a a secondary industry rather than an RGO. Alternatives: Fish, sturdy grains, livestock.
I tidlig middelalder blev der oprettet sogne, og området oplevede kraftig vækst i dannelsen af nye landsbyer. De lå oftest på morænebakkernes kant, hvorfra der var adgang til både marker og græsningsarealer. Ud over landbrug spillede fiskeri, især sildefiskeri i Limfjorden, en vigtig økonomisk...
trap.lex.dk
Vesteuropa, Lybæk og dansk handel i senmiddelalderen, Historisk tidsskrift, 1991
Conversely, I would suggest adding salt to Skagen, representing the salt from Læsø. It is estimated (from field measurements, archaeology and remote sensing) that in total 35 salt huts were active on the island in 1337 (with an assumed max yearly output of 30 tons each = max 1050 tons yearly). The salt from Læsø was traded all around Denmark, in Norway, and perhaps also in the Eastern Baltic.
” The salt industry on the Danish Kattegat island of Læsø (1150–1652): Hypersaline source, climatic dependence, and environmental impact”
Further generalistic salt reading: “Salthandel og Norden” in “Danmark og Europa i Senmiddelalderen” for more on the types of salt produced and their quantity+quality. The book also has a lot of cool trade registers for trade with Lübeck, but not a lot of specifics on where the goods where originally from (not information people cared enough about to write down back then).
Kalø (Djursland) – Fish OK, Sturdy grains produced in the south and inland areas, with fishing being a major economic activity along the less fertile north and northeast.
Population
Generally I would shift a small amount of pops away from Bølling, Ringkøbing, Holstebro and Grindsted towards the East coast of Jutland, Lolland and Zealand. This is to represent the ongoing agrarian crisis (following famine of 1315, and the general dissolution and anarchy in Denmark post-1332) and urbanization in its infancy.
See for example:
"Small towns or hamlets by number of farms attached" 1688
The Cambridge History of Scandinavia Vol 1: Rural conditions
Pest og befolkningsnedgang i Danmark i det 14. århundrede
Det danske landbrugs historie. Bind 1 : Oldtid og middelalder
Among many more. This is a hotly debated and disputed topic.
For overall population of modern Denmark, the number 1 million before the black death (actually in the 1200s) floats around in a lot of older textbooks, but always with the caveat that this is an unreliable estimate and without any primary source for the calculation. I have not been able to track down who originally made this estimate, other than it was made using numbers from the 1231 census book.
If any real mathematician/statistician/demographer wants to have fun with the numbers, I have attached an excel spreadsheet with some rushed estimates I made using available data and other estimates (estimates based on estimates, I know, the numbers are hardly worth anything).
HRE
It is understandable if Schleswig is made part of the HRE from the start for to simplify the complexity and steer historicity.
To be technically correct though, it would not be a part of the HRE de facto until the Treaty of Ribe in 1460 and de jure is very debatable. Still, there was supposedly a document called ”Constitutio Valdemariana” signed in 1326 (according to documents a century later), forcing the Danish king to have the duchy be a vassal or independent rather than crown land (which it promptly became again in the 1500s, grand oaths and fine words being just that). That had more to do with the dynastic aspirations of the Holstein-Rendsburg counts (specifically Gerhard III) though, and very little to do with the HRE.
Constitutio Valdemariana, (på dansk: Valdemars forordning) er eftertidens betegnelse på bestemmelsen om, at Sønderjylland ikke må indlemmes i Danmark. Før sit valg til dansk konge udstedte Christian 1.
Hertugdømmet Slesvig dækker over et territorium, der bestod fra ca. 1200 til 1867. Begrebet dækker i denne periode stort set det samme som ordet ’Sønderjylland’. Landsdelen udviklede sig i middelalderen til et hertugdømme med eget dynasti.
danmarkshistorien.dk
Language
I would caution against using old pre-reformation and dialectical spellings on this scale of detail. At first glance, it looks really cool and unique, but then come the problems with consistency. As this is pre-printing press, the vernacular language had very few rules or conventions attached to it. Thus you can see the same thing or place with 5 different spellings in 5 different documents (or even in early maps). What is correct is a matter of interpretation, or rather, is not a thing. Vernacular language was a constantly evolving thing, almost exclusively peasants and low-ranking town dwellers were monolingual in only vernacular language (other estates had Latin or Lingua Franca to supplement and use for documentation and trade purposes). Any attempt at standardization of i.e. Middle Danish (but basically any language of a size beyond a mountain valley without a sufficient writers' culture in that language) will inevitably impose modern conventions on a language that never had them.
There have been many great posts about the Finnish map. I have been doing some research, too, and I think I have something to add.
Firstly, some have noted that there are not very many lakes in the Finnish map at the moment, and I agree that there should be many more. In the Italian map, for example, lakes as small as 57 km2 have been added, so I think there should be room fore more representation of this aspect of the Finnish geography. I have made a map of Finnish lakes with an area larger than 100 km2, color-coded so that in case of the cut-off point being lower, the map can still be used. Red lakes have an area in excess of 1000 km2, orange ones with an excess of 500 km2, yellow with more than 250 km2, teal with more than 150 km2. The rest are coloured blue. I have drawn the lakes to avoid very narrow isthmuses. The source is here: list of 100 largest lakes in Finland. Artificial lakes are not included in the map. I also refined the shapes of some existing lakes a bit.
Also included in the map is a suggestion for refinement of the coastline near Turku. Even though I can see why it was drawn like it was, I find it makes the area look unrecognizable.
After looking at the lakes I noticed some of the province borders are a bit stretched to the north, so many settlements are not actually inside their location borders. I have made a location map to fix this as well as correcting other inaccuracies in naming the provinces. If the choice were mine I would certainly adopt Ipponen's excellent map (with lakes added) but as I'm not sure such large changes are in the cards, I wanted to present another possibility. I tried to make an adjusted province map with the greatest amount of added accuracy for as little location border changes as possible (though there still are many, if only due to the added lakes). I didn't add any locations or provinces, nor moved any extensively.
As for naming the locations, I almost completely agree with Torakka's suggested province names. When I have changed the name in some other way, I have marked the changed name in the map with an asterisk, and explained my reasons below. The settlements the locations are named after are marked to the map. Here are my proposed changes:
1) South:
Satakunta:
- Hvittis --> Kumo* (parish is about 100 years older than Hvittis, mentioned in 1324)
Tavastland:
- Somero --> Loimo* and Forssa --> Sääksmäki*. Somero and Loimo are too close to each other, so I changed Forssa to Sääksmäki (parish founded 1335), instead.
- Itis --> Heinola* (Iitti is located too south, I think Heinola is the most suitable name for this location.
- Viitasaari --> Viitasalo* (original name of the settlement)
Savolax:
- Heinola --> Mikkeli* (Mäntyharju would be a good name, too, but then it would be difficult to fit Mikkeli)
- Ristiina --> Puumala* (Ristiina is located 15 km south of Mikkeli, so the location would be hard to stretch to include the settlement)
- Mikkeli --> Juva* (Juva has the perfect location, and also is the oldest parish in the area, founded in 1460)
- Savonranta --> Heinävesi* (not a very old settlement, but centrally located. Sääminki is located too far south, and Rantasalmi too far to the southwest)
- Rautavaara --> Nilsiä* (Nilsiä parish is about 80 years older, and Rautavaara village is not inside the location border
Far Karelia --> North Karelia:
- Mökhö --> Ilomantsi* (Möhkö is too small to form a location around)
- Ilomantsi --> Kontiolahti* (the oldest parish in the area)
- Loymola --> Suistamo* (Pälkjärvi was a bit too close to Kitee. Suistamo is also an old settlement, mentioned in 1500. Furthermore, Loymola was a part of Suistamo during the Finnish era.)
Österbotten
- Koppo --> Lappfjärd* (can't fit Vorå between Korsholm, Pedersöre and Pedersöre, so provinces are shifted to the south here). Lappfjärd parish founded 1607)
- Korsholm --> Närpes* (more provinces shifted to the south, Närpes is the oldest settlement in the area, mentioned in the 1300s)
- Vorå --> Korsholm* (last province shifted to the south)
2) Center:
Österbotten:
- Kaustby --> Veteli* (Veteli is somewhat older. Kaustby would be fine, as well)
- Simo --> Kemi* (provinces shifted east here to get Torneå to the correct side of the current Finnish-Swedish border)
Kiemi --> Torneå* (moved to Västerbotten province to get its border to the correct place)
- Would prefer to add Kalajoki province between Karleby and Saloinen.
Inre Österbotten
- Rovaniemi --> Ylitornio* (moved to Västerbotten province to get its border to the correct place)
- Korvala --> Korkala* (spelling?)
- Kemijärvi, Kuusamo, Posio and Kuolajärvi moved to Eastern Lapland to realize this border. The eastern borders of Kuusamo and Kuolajärvi are shifted to get rid of the anachronistic 1940 border.
- Suomussalmi --> Hyrynsalmi (Hyrynsalmi is about 70 years older as a parish, and Suomussalmi was originally a part of Hyrynsalmi. Also eastern border has been adjusted)
- Kuhmo --> Kuhmoniemi (the original name. Also eastern border has been adjusted)
3) North:
Norra Lapland & Österbotten:
Torneå --> Kalix* (because Torneå was moved eastwards)
Hienatemi --> Överkalix* ( Hietaniemi could be good here, too)
Mourionska --> Muonionniska* (no name change, but the location was moved to the east to the correct side of Torne älv)
Enontekis --> Karesuando* (moved to the south to the place of Mourionska, Karesuando seems to be the central settlement here)
Thanks for a long and good post. While we can discuss the details about exactly which location that should be used or not, I am really happy about the suggestion of using the Lappmarks for dividing the north. When I saw that post I felt like "why didn't i think of that"
Oh thanks for the response, I appreaciate it! I hope some non-corrections in my post didn't come off as corrections. There are a few differences between the province map I used and the one used on the current map (I assume it to be this one or something similar). The borders of the provinces obviously changed a little over history, so both are useful references. The main point was the provinces stretching too far north, causing a few issues like Kajana being part of Savolax. Fixing this issue would then allow the historical Teusina and Stolbovo borders to be drawn without distortion. To be honest, one reason I made a post this detailed is simply because I love drawing maps.
This really stands out from your otherwise quite amazing post. I reckon that the current situation reflects reality much better. If Sweden should own everything south of the border, should Novgorod own everything to the north then? Sweden aboslutely did not control that much land, and giving Sweden that much would be plain ahistorical. We don't know how the colonisation is going to work, but it would seem that the actually owned locations require a little bit more than just population.
The Swedish state in Finland was built on the back of the church's organisation, and it makes sense to limit Swedish control to whatever the church was actually able tax, which is pretty close to what they already have on the map. Your proposed setup would also enable very ahistorically quick colonisation of the interior. There were reasons why they focused on the Bay of Bothnia before even worrying about inner Tavastia and Savolax, and Kajanaland.
I would also recommend we'd not fuss over historical borders too much because what eventually came to be was due to Sweden giving zero fucks about respecting the border. Basically immediately after the 1323 treaty, the Swedish crown and church began work on bringing the entire Bay of Bothnia under their control, albeit that would still take over 200 years for the crown to actually control it.
What if Novgorod undertook similar measures, or had succeeded in the ones they did? Encouraging Karelians to settle into northern Savolax, and then later claiming they own the land, just like Sweden did historically. Actually managed to establish themselves in Uleå in the 1370s and repel the Swedes, further pressing their claims and interpretation of the border even in Västerbotten? Novgorodian and later Muscovite interpretations put the border at the Bygde sten in Bygdeå or Bjuröklubb. It's also clear that Swedish institutions were not yet established north of Skellefteå in the 1330s.
Let us not deny the game plausible alternate histories by taking the 1323 border too literally. I find that is the main point of all historians who ever studied the border. It was not a border anywhere else but in the south, where it was necessary for trade and taxation.
Your setup would also greatly hamper whatever gameplay Tinto has planned for the tribes.
Fair enough, though I think Sweden should still have more territory than it currently has. In the Treaty of Nöteborg, southern Savonia was given to Sweden along the pogosts of Jääski and Äyräpää. Before the treaty southern Savonia or more accurately Savilahti was a pogost of Novgorod, with people being converted to the Orthodox faith and paying taxes to Novgorod. After the treaty the Savonians had to reorient themselves, paying taxes to Sweden instead, trading in Viborg instead of Kexholm and becoming Catholic. (https://savonhistoria.fi/vuoteen-1533/14-liittyminen-ruotsin-ja-lannen-kirkon-valtapiiriin/) Because of this I think that the southern permanently settled areas should absolutely be part of Sweden in 1337. I also think Sweden should have a little more of the Ostrobothian coast, as the parishe of Pedersöre has been mentioned as far back as the 13th century.
Perhaps something like this be better for the game? The areas without permanent settlement are left uncolonized and Sweden owns a little less of the Ostrobothnian coast.
I also depicted the Novgorodian territory in Karelia. The northern coast of Ladoga would've definitely been under Novgorod's authority at this time, as sources explicitly speak of Novgorod conquering and ruling both the eastern Karelian isthmus and Ladoga Karelia. Karelian settlement didn't seem to reach (much) further north at this time, so northern Kexholm/Korela should probably be uncolonzied too. The first families inhabiting Suojärvi were only mentioned in the 16th century according to Wikipedia, for example.
There have been many great posts about the Finnish map. I have been doing some research, too, and I think I have something to add.
Firstly, some have noted that there are not very many lakes in the Finnish map at the moment, and I agree that there should be many more. In the Italian map, for example, lakes as small as 57 km2 have been added, so I think there should be room fore more representation of this aspect of the Finnish geography. I have made a map of Finnish lakes with an area larger than 100 km2, color-coded so that in case of the cut-off point being lower, the map can still be used. Red lakes have an area in excess of 1000 km2, orange ones with an excess of 500 km2, yellow with more than 250 km2, teal with more than 150 km2. The rest are coloured blue. I have drawn the lakes to avoid very narrow isthmuses. The source is here: list of 100 largest lakes in Finland. Artificial lakes are not included in the map. I also refined the shapes of some existing lakes a bit.
Also included in the map is a suggestion for refinement of the coastline near Turku. Even though I can see why it was drawn like it was, I find it makes the area look unrecognizable.
After looking at the lakes I noticed some of the province borders are a bit stretched to the north, so many settlements are not actually inside their location borders. I have made a location map to fix this as well as correcting other inaccuracies in naming the provinces. If the choice were mine I would certainly adopt Ipponen's excellent map (with lakes added) but as I'm not sure such large changes are in the cards, I wanted to present another possibility. I tried to make an adjusted province map with the greatest amount of added accuracy for as little location border changes as possible (though there still are many, if only due to the added lakes). I didn't add any locations or provinces, nor moved any extensively.
As for naming the locations, I almost completely agree with Torakka's suggested province names. When I have changed the name in some other way, I have marked the changed name in the map with an asterisk, and explained my reasons below. The settlements the locations are named after are marked to the map. Here are my proposed changes:
Satakunta:
- Hvittis --> Kumo* (parish is about 100 years older than Hvittis, mentioned in 1324)
Tavastland:
- Somero --> Loimo* and Forssa --> Sääksmäki*. Somero and Loimo are too close to each other, so I changed Forssa to Sääksmäki (parish founded 1335), instead.
- Itis --> Heinola* (Iitti is located too south, I think Heinola is the most suitable name for this location.
- Viitasaari --> Viitasalo* (original name of the settlement)
Savolax:
- Heinola --> Mikkeli* (Mäntyharju would be a good name, too, but then it would be difficult to fit Mikkeli)
- Ristiina --> Puumala* (Ristiina is located 15 km south of Mikkeli, so the location would be hard to stretch to include the settlement)
- Mikkeli --> Juva* (Juva has the perfect location, and also is the oldest parish in the area, founded in 1460)
- Savonranta --> Heinävesi* (not a very old settlement, but centrally located. Sääminki is located too far south, and Rantasalmi too far to the southwest)
- Rautavaara --> Nilsiä* (Nilsiä parish is about 80 years older, and Rautavaara village is not inside the location border
Far Karelia --> North Karelia:
- Mökhö --> Ilomantsi (Möhkö is too small to form a location around)
- Ilomantsi --> Kontiolahti (the oldest parish in the area)
Österbotten
- Koppo --> Lappfjärd* (can't fit Vorå between Korsholm, Pedersöre and Pedersöre, so provinces are shifted to the south here). Lappfjärd parish founded 1607)
- Korsholm --> Närpes* (more provinces shifted to the south, Närpes is the oldest settlement in the area, mentioned in the 1300s)
- Vorå --> Korsholm* (last province shifted to the south)
Österbotten:
- Kaustby --> Veteli* (Veteli is somewhat older. Kaustby would be fine, as well)
- Simo --> Kemi* (provinces shifted east here to get Torneå to the correct side of the current Finnish-Swedish border)
Kiemi --> Torneå* (moved to Västerbotten province to get its border to the correct place)
- Would prefer to add Kalajoki province between Karleby and Saloinen.
Inre Österbotten
- Rovaniemi --> Ylitornio* (moved to Västerbotten province to get its border to the correct place)
- Korvala --> Korkala* (spelling?)
- Kemijärvi, Kuusamo, Posio and Kuolajärvi moved to Eastern Lapland to realize this border. The eastern borders of Kuusamo and Kuolajärvi are shifted to get rid of the anachronistic 1940 border.
- Suomussalmi --> Hyrynsalmi (Hyrynsalmi is about 70 years older as a parish, and Suomussalmi was originally a part of Hyrynsalmi. Also eastern border has been adjusted)
- Kuhmo --> Kuhmoniemi (the original name. Also eastern border has been adjusted)
Norra Lapland & Österbotten:
Torneå --> Kalix* (because Torneå was moved eastwards)
Hienatemi --> Överkalix* ( Hietaniemi could be good here, too)
Mourionska --> Muonionniska* (no name change, but the location was moved to the east to the correct side of Torne älv)
Enontekis --> Karesuando* (moved to the south to the place of Mourionska, Karesuando seems to be the central settlement here)
I agree with Finland having more likes. I like how the lakes were done in HOI4, with all of them behaving as obstacles. I tried to use this philosophy in my map too as long as it didn't conflict with province borders. The Turku archipelago looks better here, though I like the idea someone here had of showing even more islands. Perhaps the mass of islands could even be made into a location?
I was thinking about how to best represent the region of Eastern Karelia and I may have come up with a solution, that is, in my opinion, far better than the current empty wasteland.
For those of you who are confused, this is the "wasteland" I'm referring to:
I propose making a couple changes to existing locations, while also adding a few new ones along with corridors connecting them. I have tried to illustrate these changes in the picture below:
Change the shape of the location of Kuhmo so, that some space in the south is freed up for Repola, while giving it some more territories in the north to include the Lentua, Lentiira, Kalliojoki & Vartius areas (circled area in the picture above, some of the aforementioned locations can be seen in the picture). The shape of Kuhmo seems a little bit off and it might be due to these areas being either in Suomussalmi or within the wasteland.
Add the location of Repola. It was first mentioned in mid-1500s but has existed probably longer than that as it sits along old traderoutes.
Add a corridor between Kuhmo and Jyškyjärvi (Rus. Yushkozero). The corridor could follow Lentua-Kiimasjärvi-Nuokkijärvi route.
Add the location of Jyškyjärvi as it sits at the confluence of multiple waterways.
Add a corridor between Jyškyjärvi and Uhtua. The corridor could follow along Upper- and Lower- Kuittijärvi lakes.
Add a corridor between Jyškyjärvi and Kem. The corridor could follow the river Kem.
Add the location of Uhtua/Kalevala. It sits along the waterways and also might have some cultural significance to some countries/regions...
Add a corridor between Uhtua and Suomussalmi. The corridor could follow Kuitojärvi-Vuokkiniemi route.
Add a corridor between Uhtua and Pääjärvi. The corridor could follow the Pistojoki-Pistojärvi route.
Add the location of Pääjärvi. Honestly I don't have much information on this location, as it is already quite far from my home region. It was mentioned in a book I'm about to reference but any additional info is welcome...
Add a corridor between Pääjärvi and Kouta (Rus. Kovda, maybe a typo there or am I mistaken?).
These changes were based on information found in the book called Kainuun historia I (Engl. The History of Kainuu vol. I) along with some personal knowledge I have as a local of the Eastern Finnish / Karelian regions. The picture below can be found on page 245 in the book I mentioned, the double lines are commonly used waterways and overland routes:
I hope this post reaches the devs, as these changes would go a long way in simulating the interconnectivity of the region, while retaining the sense of remoteness at the same time. Also, any comments / constructive criticism regarding this idea are welcome!
I like this solution for the wasteland a lot. It would make fighting here pretty interesting. I think the corridor locations would be unneeded though, as the places aren't that far from each other unlike in Egypt. The locations could instead just be drawn such that they connect to each other along the waterways and land routes.
I'm sorry if it makes northern Norway even more monotonous geographically, but Lofotr, Langenes and Senja should be mountains as well. These locations are dominated by steep mountains in the same way the neighbouring locations are. If the locations were more granular some smaller fractions of these (and other) locatons could maybe be hills, but based on the current location setup it's just not right.
How about Svalbard? Obviously it's not populated at this point, but will players be able to live out the (I assume common) Roald Amundsen/17th century mashup fantasy?
There have been many great posts about the Finnish map. I have been doing some research, too, and I think I have something to add.
Firstly, some have noted that there are not very many lakes in the Finnish map at the moment, and I agree that there should be many more. In the Italian map, for example, lakes as small as 57 km2 have been added, so I think there should be room fore more representation of this aspect of the Finnish geography. I have made a map of Finnish lakes with an area larger than 100 km2, color-coded so that in case of the cut-off point being lower, the map can still be used. Red lakes have an area in excess of 1000 km2, orange ones with an excess of 500 km2, yellow with more than 250 km2, teal with more than 150 km2. The rest are coloured blue. I have drawn the lakes to avoid very narrow isthmuses. The source is here: list of 100 largest lakes in Finland. Artificial lakes are not included in the map. I also refined the shapes of some existing lakes a bit.
Also included in the map is a suggestion for refinement of the coastline near Turku. Even though I can see why it was drawn like it was, I find it makes the area look unrecognizable.
After looking at the lakes I noticed some of the province borders are a bit stretched to the north, so many settlements are not actually inside their location borders. I have made a location map to fix this as well as correcting other inaccuracies in naming the provinces. If the choice were mine I would certainly adopt Ipponen's excellent map (with lakes added) but as I'm not sure such large changes are in the cards, I wanted to present another possibility. I tried to make an adjusted province map with the greatest amount of added accuracy for as little location border changes as possible (though there still are many, if only due to the added lakes). I didn't add any locations or provinces, nor moved any extensively.
As for naming the locations, I almost completely agree with Torakka's suggested province names. When I have changed the name in some other way, I have marked the changed name in the map with an asterisk, and explained my reasons below. The settlements the locations are named after are marked to the map. Here are my proposed changes:
Satakunta:
- Hvittis --> Kumo* (parish is about 100 years older than Hvittis, mentioned in 1324)
Tavastland:
- Somero --> Loimo* and Forssa --> Sääksmäki*. Somero and Loimo are too close to each other, so I changed Forssa to Sääksmäki (parish founded 1335), instead.
- Itis --> Heinola* (Iitti is located too south, I think Heinola is the most suitable name for this location.
- Viitasaari --> Viitasalo* (original name of the settlement)
Savolax:
- Heinola --> Mikkeli* (Mäntyharju would be a good name, too, but then it would be difficult to fit Mikkeli)
- Ristiina --> Puumala* (Ristiina is located 15 km south of Mikkeli, so the location would be hard to stretch to include the settlement)
- Mikkeli --> Juva* (Juva has the perfect location, and also is the oldest parish in the area, founded in 1460)
- Savonranta --> Heinävesi* (not a very old settlement, but centrally located. Sääminki is located too far south, and Rantasalmi too far to the southwest)
- Rautavaara --> Nilsiä* (Nilsiä parish is about 80 years older, and Rautavaara village is not inside the location border
Far Karelia --> North Karelia:
- Mökhö --> Ilomantsi (Möhkö is too small to form a location around)
- Ilomantsi --> Kontiolahti (the oldest parish in the area)
Österbotten
- Koppo --> Lappfjärd* (can't fit Vorå between Korsholm, Pedersöre and Pedersöre, so provinces are shifted to the south here). Lappfjärd parish founded 1607)
- Korsholm --> Närpes* (more provinces shifted to the south, Närpes is the oldest settlement in the area, mentioned in the 1300s)
- Vorå --> Korsholm* (last province shifted to the south)
Österbotten:
- Kaustby --> Veteli* (Veteli is somewhat older. Kaustby would be fine, as well)
- Simo --> Kemi* (provinces shifted east here to get Torneå to the correct side of the current Finnish-Swedish border)
Kiemi --> Torneå* (moved to Västerbotten province to get its border to the correct place)
- Would prefer to add Kalajoki province between Karleby and Saloinen.
Inre Österbotten
- Rovaniemi --> Ylitornio* (moved to Västerbotten province to get its border to the correct place)
- Korvala --> Korkala* (spelling?)
- Kemijärvi, Kuusamo, Posio and Kuolajärvi moved to Eastern Lapland to realize this border. The eastern borders of Kuusamo and Kuolajärvi are shifted to get rid of the anachronistic 1940 border.
- Suomussalmi --> Hyrynsalmi (Hyrynsalmi is about 70 years older as a parish, and Suomussalmi was originally a part of Hyrynsalmi. Also eastern border has been adjusted)
- Kuhmo --> Kuhmoniemi (the original name. Also eastern border has been adjusted)
Norra Lapland & Österbotten:
Torneå --> Kalix* (because Torneå was moved eastwards)
Hienatemi --> Överkalix* ( Hietaniemi could be good here, too)
Mourionska --> Muonionniska* (no name change, but the location was moved to the east to the correct side of Torne älv)
Enontekis --> Karesuando* (moved to the south to the place of Mourionska, Karesuando seems to be the central settlement here)
Norway
First of all, the letter “å” was not introduced in the Norwegian language until 1917. The historical spelling of the sound in names where the letter is used today will vary, and sometimes have multiple versions. For consistency, and to avoid spellings which would likely lead to names being pronounced wrong even among Scandinavians I would suggest using the letter “å” in Norwegian place names in the game, despite it not being historically accurate. I have generally tried to stick to modern spelling for old place names myself. Please let us know if you intend to use older spelling. The names present in the first post (the Tinto maps post) is a mix of both, which I generally think you should try to avoid.
Searchable electronic version of Diplomatarium Norvegicum, a collection of some 20000 letters and documents in their original language up until 1570. The language varies, between Norse, Latin and variants of Middle Norwegian (I have also come across at least one I believe is in some variation of German, from Lübeck). They are also supplemented with a short summary of what the document is about in more modern Norwegian. Unfortunately the searches seems to rather limited, and one may need to use several search terms even to find all documents related to a specific place with a specific spelling. In some cases this appears to be caused by a letter which looks like “æ” at first glance, but when it appears next to an actual æ looks a bit different: https://www.dokpro.uio.no/dipl_norv/diplom_felt.html
National Library of Norway (www.nb.no) has a lot of old books and documents available for free, but most are likely only available for users with a Norwegian IP. Please let me know if you want to check the sources yourself are unable to access it and want something like an ISBN number instead.
Trondhjems Reformats from 1589 is listing all the churches (and what may be translated to “choirhouses”, which I think are smaller, but serving as a place to hold services) belonging to the bishopric with seat in Nidaros/”Trondhjem”. As it is written in Danish it is not a good source for how to spell names. It can provide guidance on which which name to choose when there are multiple options. It typically lists the name of the parish, says what the main church is, and which other churches belongs to a parish. It can therefore also help providing information on where to draw borders. It also provides information on approximate tithes paid and “presterente” (literally translates to “priest interest”), which is often given as amounts of fish, cheese, grain etc. Digital version with modern print and some additional explanations is available for free here, but are is only available with a Norwegian IP (it also contains Oslo Domkapittels Jordebok from 1585, which serves the same purpose for the bishopric of Oslo, but which is on a significantly less reader friendly format): https://www.nb.no/items/URN:NBN:no-nb_digibok_2014062305068?page=0
Wikipedia has links to many of the modern churches which are likely to be located in more or less the same place (and in some cases the same churches), which can make it easier to figure out what the old, Danish, spelling refers to: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trondhjems_Reformats_1589
SNL, or Store Norske Leksikon, is a Norwegian encyclopedia freely available on the internet. It is largely based on a series of paperback encyclopeida first published in 1978, but is still being maintained. The articles are updated by named people. The contributors are recruited through a cooperation with Norwegian Universities and University Colleges. Link: https://snl.no/
“Län” is a Swedish word. The appropriate Norwegian word would be “len”, and the older version of the word (likely used in 1337) would be “lén”. I would however suggest avoid including it in province names entirely for Norway, with one exception (Båhuslen). These administrative units have changed names and form multiple times in the game’s time frame. For example just “Bergenhus” is perfectly sufficient as a province name. That works both with a len-system and an amt-system: https://snl.no/len
The transition from the administrative units called syssel/sysle to len happened throughout the 14th century. The granularity of the earlier syssel is however in many places better suited for locations than for provinces. The same can be said for the later “len”. https://snl.no/sysle
An important note on population numbers
The huge amount of location populations ending with either 25, 33 and 35 gives a strong feeling of population numbers being “gamified”, or maybe more of a "that will do" feeling. Doing a quick scan of the population map showing the “middle”part of Norway and Sweden I find a grand total of four locations in Norway which does not end with those numbers, and possibly two more in the Stockholm area (plus the 00 endings in northern Sweden). I have no problem understanding that most of these numbers have to be made up in some way, but it would probably help a lot for how they feel if they were just slightly randomized so that the last 2-3 digits (depending on population size) would vary from location to location. With the amount of work seemingly going into the starting setup it would be a pity if part of the feeling of a very detailed map is ruined by such a seemingly trivial thing.
Disclaimer: When I describe something (name, location etc.) as “current” I should be refering to the current implementation in project Caesar as presented in the opening post. It does not refer to what the modern name/situation is in real life. It is however not unlikely that I have slipped somewhere.
Provinces and locations
The historical administrative units of Norway aren’t easy to make a good province distribution from. Not only have the names changed from “fylke” to “sysle” (late 13th century?), then “len” (14th century), then the Danish “amt” (1662) just to end up back as “fylke” as they have been called since 1919. The borders and names have also changed quite a bit not only during the game’s timeframe, but also before and after. Many of the historical “sysler”, “len” and “amt” tends to be either far too small or too big to be included as provinces in project Caesar. Some places which were once important may also have more or less disappeared, or places important today may not even have had any meaningful population. As a result there is not always an obvious answer to how the Norwegian provinces and locations should be divided or named. Below I have tried to provide some suggestions, with some reasoning for why I suggest it to be so.
I have tried listing the below from southeastern Norway, then moving along the coast to Finnmark. Locations are primarily grouped by province, but in some cases it may get messy as I do suggest some changes in the province setup as well. Hopefully the order and formatting is somewhat easy to follow. Unfortunately my drawing skills are rather bad, so my map illustrations should only be taken as very rough guidelines, and not be implemented as the final borders.
Båhuslän: The current name “Bohus län” is Swedish. Rename it to either Båhus or Båhuslen. While I would generally avoid including the “len” part for Norwegian province names, I would make an exception for this one due to it having become part of the name in Norwegian, possibly due to it later becoming Swedish. For other “len”, such as “Bergenhus len” and “Akershus len” the “len” part is written separately from the rest of the name and is therefore not necessary to include.
Østfold: Rename to it Borgarsysla (or Borgarsyssel/Borgesyssel). The current name “Østfold” isn’t outragous, but the name was not adopted as an administrative name until 1919. The modern form “Borgesysssel” is still used in the name of some ecclesiastical administrations even today. The name “Smaalenene” which was used towards the end of the game’s timeframe, and until 1919, should probably be avoided as the name itself comes in part from a bunch of len which are too small to include as locations (14 or so compared to the current four locations).
Variations of Borgarsysla occurs on multiple occasions in Diplomatarium Norvegicum, including in a letter from 1337 referring to Borgarsyssel (spelled “Borghar syslu”): https://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/middelalder/diplom_vise_tekst.cgi?b=18570
Trøgstad: Considering the size of the current location, a more suitable name would probably be “Heggen og Frøland”, or even “Rakkestad, Heggen og Frøland” but that may be too long. The name "Heggen og Frøland" was still used in the Norwegian court system until 2021. Alternative names could be “Askim” or “Eidsberg”, as the province appears to include these areas as well. Those may be less of a mouthful to read/pronounce than Trøgstad, even for Scandinavians. Judging by how far north the province stretches compared to the Oslo fjord, the northern part should be split off and form part of Romerike alongside parts of of the current locations Kongsvinger, Ski and Eidsvoll. See paint job below.
Akershus was created as len in the 16th century, but with somewhat different borders to what it has today (the current ingame borders appears to be based on the modern borders plus Oslo which it included historically).
Eidsvoll: Romerike should be a location rather than Eidsvoll, as demonstrated by the above paint job. It is however pretty much impossible to tell exactly where the borders should be without any of the major lakes/rivers (i.e. Mjøsa and Glomma). Some of the leftovers from Eidsvoll may fit better with Ringerike or Oslo.
Ski should be renamed to “Follo”. Follo is the area, while Ski was a less important place in the game’s time frame. For large parts of the game’s time frame the church there had status as an “annex” to the church at Kråkstad. Until 1930 Ski was also administratively a part of Kråkstad, but Ski ended up becoming more important due to it being where two rail lines connects, and it has therefore later grown significantly more than many of the nearby towns. The area contains multiple towns/locations which were present at the start of the game, but it doesn’t really make sense to name the location after any one of them. Follo appears frequently in Diplomatarium Norvegicum (atleast 211 letters/documents from 1264 to 1558), including in a letter from 1337 where king Magnus VII Eriksson confirms the privileges granted by his grandfather to the church of Saint Mary in Oslo. The privileges in question are in four named “sysler”, including Follo: https://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/middelalder/diplom_vise_tekst.cgi?b=1348
Another letter from king Christian III of Denmark from 1558 regarding privileges for Follo len: https://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/middelalder/diplom_vise_tekst.cgi?b=11884
Hedmark and Oppland: Hedmark(en) Was a much smaller len in 1337 than the ingame province, but there is not good historical alternative for this province without merging it with Oppland. The name is however historically incorrect, as Hedmarken traditionally only refers to the area directly east of the lake Mjøsa.
Kongsvinger should be renamed to just “Vinger”. The “Kongs-” part (meaning “the King’s”) was added when the Danish king built a fortress there in the 1680s. The current location seems like it covers some of Romerike, but again it is difficult to tell exactly without any rivers/lakes.
Glommadal should be renamed to Solør. Solør is the area between Elverum and Kongsvinger. Solør is mentioned as early as in the Ynglinga saga by Snorri Sturlasson around 1225 and remains a name used for the area today. In real life, Glåmdalen includes Kongsvinger as well.
Elverum: I can’t see any border between Elverum and Glommadal. Is there supposed to be one, or will they be merged? At the moment it feeles like Elverum is positioned very slightly too far north, but it will depend on where the border between Elverum and Glommadal ends up.
Hamar, Vardal, Lillehammer and Vestglomma: Something is very off with the location/orientation of these locations. Adding lake Mjøsa would make it significantly easier to get right. The lake itself is the largest in Norway, and is 117 kilometers long. Its southern end should be at the northern border of Eidsvoll/Romerike. The southern part of the lake should be oriented more or less directly north-south, then take a turn towars the north-west:
What is Vestglomma? Is it supposed to be Ringsaker? If you want it as a separate location it should be named Ringsaker. That name has been used since before the start date of the game, and it is still used today. It should only be on the eastern side of lake Mjøsa. This location should meet Lillehammer almost at the northern end of lake Mjøsa.
The Hamar location should probably be renamed Hedmarken, although that is a larger area than just the Hamar location. The location should be positioned along the eastern shore of the lake Mjøsa. At the moment Hamar is clearly oriented in the wrong direction.
Vardal should be positioned along the western shore of the lake, probably almost as far north as the northern end of Ringsaker. At no point should Vardal connect with Ringsaker or Hamar unless it is as a crossing point for the lake. A map of modern day Hedmarken can be found in this link: https://snl.no/Hedmarken
The border between Ringsaker and Hamar should go just north of the city of Hamar.
At the Northern end of the lake Lillehammer should be located.
Does Imsdalen, Alvdal and Tønset really justify being separate locations? I find Imsdalen especially dubious. Seeing how low population they are listed with I would consider merging them and calling them “Østerdalen” (including the -en ending), even though Østerdalen is technically quite a bit bigger. Having all three locations are however not wrong. Tønset could use it’s modern name “Tynset” though, if you want consistency. Tønset would also be fairly easy to split up and feed the surrounding provinces Alvdal, Røros and Orkdal (see required changes for Orkdal in the Sør-Trøndelag section below).
The current shape of Tønset also feels a bit odd, but this could be another case of me not being able to see where the border with Åmot actually is.
Oppland: Opplanda (or Oplandene) was historically used as a general term for the lands north of “Viken” (the area around the Oslofjord). I struggle to see any better name for this province, but would probably prefer to see it merged with Hedmark and renamed “Opplanda”. If you choose to keep Oppland and Hedmark as separate provinces, please change the colours so that Buskerud, Oppland and Hamar are not all green.
Buskerud was separated from Akershus in 1679. I can’t think of a better name for a province sized area though.
Bragernes could be moved to Akershus, as it remained part of Akershus for a while after Buskerud was created. I’m sure doing so would evntually cause someone to complain about it though.
Kongsberg was founded in 1624 after silver was discovered in the area. It probably should not exist as a separate location in 1337. The population is certainly way too high if you want to keep the location for the sake of future events related to the silver production. Not sure what the best solution here would be, as it would depend quite a bit on other gameplay features.
Vestfold: The current province stretches way too far inland. Vestfold was historically only used for the areas close to the coast. I would suggest having Vestfold only include the locations Tønsberg and Sande. Yes, it will be small, but it always has been. It is also old.
From a historical perspective Tønsberg could/should be split in two, with the southern half called Brunla (or, if you want a more modern name, Larvik), but I suspect you don’t want locations that small. At least not in Norway.
Bratsberg or Telemark could be added as a new province, but it is difficult to achieve a good historical setup for Vestfold and Telemark regardless of what you do. Historically “Telemarken” referred to the inland areas (part of the Grenland location and wasteland), while the area closer to the coast was called Skiensyssel. The name Bratsberg comes from a large estate in Skien, but was only introduced as a regional name quite late in the game’s time frame. The locations of Skien and Grenland should ideally not be part of neither Vestfold nor Agder, and a new location should ideally be added and included in the province:
Add a new location from the current wasteland and call it Telemarken (or Telemark). For example, Lårdal (or Lardal), currently appears to be a wasteland. That is where one of the few surviving stave churches in Norway, Eidsborg stave church, was built around 1250-1300. The innermost parts of the current location of Grenland may also be better suited for a location called Telemarken. The below paint job is an attempt at illustrating how I would prefer it being (including changes to Agder below):
Agder should eat some of the wasteland to the north. Other than that I don’t know a whole lot about Agder.
Setesdal should be added as a new location. While Setesdal was fairly remote/isolated, it was not a wasteland. For example, the first mention of a church in Bykle (Buglum ecclesia) in Setesdal is supposedly in the papal records from 1327, when the pope unsuccessfully were trying to collect unpaid taxes from 1274. A church still standing today was built around 1620. For comparison, Bykle would be almost as far north as the location currently called Suledal. Setesdal is often spelled “Setersdal” in sources. Historically Setesdal refers to the area around Bykle and Valle, while Otredal (Otrudal) was used about the area south of those. Alternatively Otredal should be expanded significantly northwards and renamed Setesdal.
“Landslova” (a legal code) from 1274 states that Setesdal should be represented by 3 men at the “Thing”, in addition to 4 from Otrudal. This also indicates that it wasn’t a wasteland it is currently represented as.
Sirudal sounds like an old version of the name. Consider changing it to Sirdal and extend it a bit northwards.
Sondeled should probably be renamed to the modern Søndeled
Rogaland Is one of a few names which has actually been used since before the start date of the game.
Jaeren should have the spelling changed to “Jæren”. The current location is a bit odd though, as much of the core parts of Jæren is included in the Stavanger location, and the southern parts of the location currently named Jæren are not considered part of Jæren at all, but rather as “Dalane”. Stavanger is/was also technically a part of Jæren.
Stavanger: If you want to make it more historically correct, Stavanger should be significantly smaller.
Suledal should have the spelling changed to “Suladal” as this (and “Suladale”) are the earlier written forms of the name (early 14th and early 15th century). The location should probably eat some of the wasteland. The spelling is inconsitent between sources, and I have seen both Sullædaal (in 1455) and Suledal, but variants with “a” appears to be most frequent. Digitalised letters mentioning the place: One letter in Norse from 1316: https://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/middelalder/diplom_vise_tekst.cgi?b=3584
Another letter in Latin from 1320: https://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/middelalder/diplom_vise_tekst.cgi?b=3613
Alternatively use the modern form of the name “Suldal”.
Hjelmeland Fishing should probably be replaced as the raw material. In 1337 husbandry were likely the most important. As farms were abandoned as a result of the black death forests were however allowed to grow in areas which were previously used for grazing. The lumber industry did however become important from around 1500. Source: Hjelmeland: bygdesoge: tida før 1800 (https://bibsok.no/?tnr=5915545 Free access with Norwegian IP). A book on the local history of Hjelmeland.
Haugalandet could use another name, but I can’t think of any that would be fitting for the entire area. There are plenty of locations with a long history in the area, but they are all fairly specific as far as I’m aware. The name Haugalandet supposedly first emerged in a poem by Ivar Aasen published in 1853 (Source: Wikipedia).
Bergenhus Län: Rename it to Hordaland. And spit out Sogn and Firda as suggested by Fjellfyr here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...024-scandinavia.1695964/page-16#post-29779603
I do however struggle to see any real benefit of splitting the locations much as Fjellfyr suggested. Primarily because I fear the gameplay would suffer significantly due to the low population each location would end up with. A few more locations probably wouldn’t hurt though. If you don’t mind adding at least a few hundred extra people per new location, more locations would be quite nice.
Edit: Fjellfyr have posted a better suggestion for the locations here. The above link is still valid for the provinces: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...f-july-2024-scandinavia.1695964/post-29781003
Romsdalen: Renaming it to "Møre og Romsdal" may technically be ahistorical, but the province is technically ahistorical for most of the game’s timeframe anyway.
Størdal I struggle to find out where the name Størdal comes from. Is it supposed to be Stordal? If you don’t want to use the modern name I would suggest using the name “Stoladal” which is the name used in “Aslak Bolts jordebok” written in the 1430s. The modern name is thought to be derived from that name. Source: https://www.nb.no/items/URN:NBN:no-nb_digibok_2009030304091?page=307
Trondheim Reformats from 1589 appears to be using a name corresponding to the modern “Ørskog” for large parts of the location.
Molde is unsuited for a 1337 location, but there isn’t necessarily any good alternatives as far as I’m aware.
Fosna: The name is kind of problematic. The name is derived from “Lille-Fosna” (“lille” meaning small/little) a former name for the town of Kristiansund (now named after a Danish king), but I don’t think that settlement existed at the start of the game even with its old name. Stor-Fosna (“stor” meaning large/big) on the other hand is an island outside the location currently named Ørland, and has given the name “Fosen” to the entire peninsula the Ørland location covers. The Fosna location appears to cover parts of the old syssel named Fosen and part of the syssel called “Nordmørafylke”. Trondhjems Reformats lists all the parishes in the area as part of “Nordmøre len”. I would therefore suggest renaming it to “Nordmøre” (meaning Northern Møre). That is also a name used for the area today. It would also correspond with the name of the location called Sunnmøre which means Southern Møre.
Sør-Trøndelag: The distinction between Sør and Nord-Trøndelag is ahistorical for the majority of the game’s time frame. The split first occurred in 1804, but then as Søndre- and Nordre-Trondhjems amt. Sør-Trøndelag should in my opinion be renamed to Trøndelag. The names Trondheim and Nidaros are somewhat disputed as to whether they first referred to the city or the area, and which of the sources are getting their names mixed up. Trøndelag should generally be acceptable for the area. Trondelagen were certainly used within the game’s time frame.
A few locations in both Sør-Trøndelag and Nord-Trøndelag have fairly odd (or should I say surprising?) shapes. While these shapes could technically be improved, I struggle to see much point in doing so. I think the areas which would end up moving from one location to another in most cases would be more or less wilderness, and at best cause minor changes to which locations borders each other. If someone provides a well documented suggestion for fairly minor border adjustments in the area, those could be implemented, but I’m not going to bother with those. There are plenty of bigger issues to address in Trøndelag as well.
Meråker I struggle to see much good reason to have Meråker as a separate location, unless you want to have copper as a raw material there. The production was however fairly minor prior to the 1700s. The place was part of Stjørdal until 1850 when the administrative unit was given the name Øvre Stjørdal (Upper Stjørdal). After another split in 1874 Meråker became its own administrative unit. In 1874 it had a population of 1871, compared to the 1535 people the location appears to have in 1337 inthe game at the moment. Source: https://snl.no/Stjørdal and https://snl.no/Meråker
Orkdal is currently a misplaced quite badly. Only a small part of the historical area called Orkdal is actually covered by the location. It also barely includes some of the valley which has given it its name. With the current setup, most of it consists of what was part of Fosen (the one currently called Ørland, not Fosna). From a historical point of view that area should belong to Fosen (Ørland), but from a gameplay perspective I suspect you don’t want a location covering both sides of the fjord. “Hitra” therefore appears to be the best alternative. That is the name of the largest island in the area, and in Trondhjems Reformats the parish named “Hijtteren” (that is Hitra) includes churches in morden day “Hemne”/”Kyrksæterøra”.
Next we have to redraw a more accurate Orkdal. One of the goals should be for it to actually cover the valley which the place got its name from. The eastern border of Orkdal should start a bit east of the eastern border of the original location called Orkdal. At the very least needs to go on the eastern side of the river estuary, where the river Orkla, which the valley is named after, ends. From there the borders should mostly go southwards, and a little bit towards the west, resulting in large parts of Skaun becoming part of Orkdal. Skaun was was part of the Orkdal parish at the time, so Skaun ending up being removed isn’t really a problem. The remaining parts of Skaun I would then merge with Støren and change the name from Støren to Gauldal.
I have made a rather sloppy attempt at drawing some approximate borders:
Also, the population of at least Orkdal and Skaun seems rather high. Do you know if these numbers are based on any sources or are they just guesstimates possibly gone wrong?
The most problematic border we are left with here is the one between the newly created Gauldal and Nidaros. As an alternative to merging the leftovers of Skaun with Støren to create Gauldal one could merge the leftovers of Skaun with the northern part of Støren and the South-Western part of Nidaros to create “Melhus”
Wastelands in Trøndelag
There should be a mountain pass between Holtålen and Oviken (or possibly Offerdal). The mountain pass was used by an army led by Carl Gustaf Armfeldt in the winter of 1718-1719 when it retreated after receiving orders to retreat to Sweden after Karl XII’s death. Although more than half the men died when the army was surprised by a blizzard which led to the march being granted the nickname “Karolinernas dödsmarsch” (the Carolean death march), the fact that 1000-2000 soldiers were able to pass it at the time of the year when weather conditions tend to be about as harsh as they get without severe injuries should indicate that it is traversable. Swedish Wikipedia article can be found here (a shorter version is also available in English for anyone interested): https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karolinernas_dödsmarsch
Considering the invasion route used by the above mentioned army in August 1718, the wastelands between Trøndelag and Jemtland should probably not stretch as quite as far north as it currently does, or even have a second pass between Snåsa and Offerdal with a small wasteland between the crossable borders. That would however be pointless from a gameplay perspective.
Nord-Trøndelag did not exist as a syssel/len/amt/fylke until 1919 when Nordre-Trondhjems amt changed name. A better name would be Namdalen, as this (or variants thereof) was the name used for a syssel/len corresponding to large parts of modern Nord-Trøndelag. The Namdalen region did however not include the most populous regions in the southern parts of the province. Alternatively the province could be merged with Sør-Trøndelag, under the name Trøndelag.
Ørland Should be split up, or at the very least renamed. See the below map draft. Austrått should be significantly richer/more productive than Åfjord. Raw goods in Austrått should be Sturdy Grain. Åfjord can produce fish. Below is an attempt at illustrating the suggested changes in the area:
Frosta is a suggestion for a new location. The name is still used for the peninsula on the southern side of the fjord. Leksvik on the northern side of the fjord is listed under Frosta parish in Trondhjems Reformats. It was the location of Cistercian monastery and the historical location for the Thing which has given the name to Frostating which is still used in the court system today for the entire area around Trøndelag. It had, and still has fairly significant grain production (by Norwegian standards). It should probably produce sturdy grains.
Levanger should have its borders adjusted significantly, as suggested below and renamed to Skogn. Skogn (Or variations of it, such as Skøynafylke. Not to be confused with Skaun in Sør-Trøndelag. The old spellings can sometimes read pretty much the same). Trondhjems Reformats lists Levanger as part of Skogn. Skogn/Skøynafylke was also the name of the syssel in the late 1200s and early 1300s. Raw goods could be changed to sturdy grains.
Steinkjer: The modern city of Steinkjer was founded in 1857. “Sparbu” or “Øyna” could be better choices for the name of a location, alternatively “Sparbu og Øyna”. Ideally Sparbu and Øyna would be split into different locations. These were the names of the syssels, covering the area. The following letter from the Archbishop of Nidaros from 1345 mentions a dozen or so places in the area, including Sparbu (Sparabu), Inderøy (Jnræœy), Beitstad (Beidstod), I can however not see any mention of a place which could be interpreted as Steinkjer (there are however places such as Snåsa, Verdal and Holdtålen) : https://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/middelalder/diplom_vise_tekst.cgi?b=1396
Most of the current Steinkjer location should be part of Namdal. Some should also be part of Snåsa. At the moment it looks like the place actually called Snåsa may not even be part of the Snåsa location.
If Sparbu and Øyna is implemented as a single location it should probably produce sturdy grains. This should also be the case for Sparbu if they are implemented as two locations.
Namdal is a modern form of the name, but I would stick to it. Contemporary spellings includes Nomedal, Nwmedal(l) and Nommedal (and more), although some of these mentions may be for what would correspond to a significantly larger area than the location. The raw goods could be either fish or sturdy grains. Especially the Overhalla area had and still has significant agricultural production.
Consider adding Snåsavatnet as a lake. Total area is about 125 square kilometers according to wikipedia.
Jämtland: The current name is the Swedish name. As the game starts almost 300 years before the province was ceded to Sweden, using the Norwegian name “Jemtland” seems more appropriate.
In Trondhjems Reformats, as part of the section for Hede (“Heide”) it says the following about a parish/area called “Herdall” (Heide is also listed as belonging to “Herdal”. Idre?): “Om kircketienisten vdi Herdall kunde vij ingen visz skick gjøre thi kickerne ere saa langt fra huer andre liggindis och prestens rente er ringe. Men vij haffue dog befallett dennom att de betiener kirckerne med største och moulig flidt som de ville andtsuare for Gud och deris øffrighedt.”
This basically says that details for the work done “out there in”(?) Herdall couldn’t be provided because the churches are too far apart and the tithe is poor. They have howveer commanded them (the priest?) to serve well. This seems to confirm that the area should have a very low population, as it does.
The below areas was generally sparsely populated, and the further north and more inland we get, the less information tends to be available.
Nordland: Rename it to Hålogaland (alternatively an older version without å, “Hálogaland”) The current name “Nordland” is not really known until the 16th century, but then “Nordlandene”, which was used as a term for what corresponds to Nordland and Troms, not just modern day/ingame Nordland).
Birndal The location barely touches area actually called Bindal (modern name). The southern parts (of the modern place) belonged to Namdalen until 1852, while the northern parts were added to “Helgeland” (Southern parts of Hålogaland) in 1658. Bindal is a valley following the small fjord which is mostly in the Namdal location, with the northernmost part being in Bindal with the current setup.
The place called Bindal today belonged to Namdalen. The province of Nord-Trøndelag represents the border of Namdalen (as a province, not a location) fairly well, but any location called Birndal needs to be placed in that Province. I therefore suggest the following:
Bi(r)ndal needs to be moved southwards so that its northern border follows the current northern border of the location called Namdal. See the picture below.
Rename the location currently called Birndal to Brønnøy or the older version of the name, Brunnøy. Trondhjems Reformats, from 1589 called the parish in the area “Bryniøen” which seems like a Danish version of the name (-ø instead of -øy for island names typically indicates a Danish name). This included churches in Sømna (the westernmost peninsula pointing southwards in the current location called Birndal), Vega (the “big” island in the current Birndal location), Brønnøy (the small northern peninsula and the central parts, and I guess the tiny islands are Torget etc. which are part of modern Brønnøy), Nøstvik (the covered by the bottom left corner of the B in Birndal). These places/churches indicates that pretty much all of the more or less inhabitable terrain in the location currently called Birndal was considered to belong to the parish of Brønnøy in 1588 when the information was provided for “Trondhjems reformats (it was completed in 1589).
Source: https://www.nb.no/items/URN:NBN:no-nb_digibok_2014062305068?page=85
Large parts of the location also covers what Aslak Bolts jordebok from the 1430s says belongs to a parish named Brunnøy (modern name Brønnøy). Source: https://www.nb.no/items/URN:NBN:no-nb_digibok_2009030304091?page=337
Also, the only mention I find of Bindal using “r” in the name calls it Birnodale (Aslak Bolts jordebok). The “r” appears to not be used in Trondhjems Reformats, but I don’t know if that is a result of it being in Danish, or if the name had actually changed by that time.
For Brønnøy the raw goods should be either sturdy grains or fish. Trondhjems Reformats lists the tithe as 50 barrels of grain, 30 voger fish (but the fishing is commented as being a bit better over the past two years), 10 voger cheese and what I believe may be 5 or 6 salmon (just number of fish, not a measurement) and 2 “kubber” (some measurement for wood/lumber?).
Something about the map land shape in this area feels very wrong, but that could be caused by the map projection and the huge amount of tiny islands in the area. I would very much like to see pretty much the entire stretch of sea between Vega (Island outside current Birnadal) and Dønna (Island outside Alstahaug) scattered with tiny islands as shown below:
Hamarøy is listed (with the name “Hammerrøø”) as belonging to the parish of Steigen in Trondhjems Reformats. Unless you really want to reduce the amount of locations, keeping Hamarøy as it is seems fine.
Langenes: Should be renamed to either Vesterålen or Andenes. Vesterålen is the modern version of the name used for the parish in Trondhjems Reformats (Westeraalen). It is also the name used today for the area more or less corresponding with the location. From what I can tell the name Langenes wasn’t used for an administrative unit until 1919. Andenes became a len during the 1400s: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andenes_len
Andenes was also the name of a parish covering Andøya (The northernmost island in the location).
Andenes was founded in the 1300s, and for part of the time period of the game it was also the largest fishing village (fiskevær) in Norway: https://arkivinordland.no/fylkesleksikon/innhold/kommuner/andoy/fortidsminner-i-andoy.37534.aspx
Ofoti: I would rename it to the modern Ofoten rather than the norse form Ofoti. The latter part of the name has the same origin as the “foten” part in Lofoten. As the -en ending appears to be present in 1417, I would also use that for Ofoten. Trondhjems Reformats appears to be using the name “Ofothen” twice and “Offothen” once (I'm guessing teh extra f is a typo).
Troms should probably be merged mostly with Hålogaland, but the exact border between Hålogaland/Nordlandene and Finnmark has changed over the years. The administrative region of “Troms” was not created until 1866.
Trondenes seems fine without doing a deep dive, but should be part of Hålogaland/Nordlandene.
Senja: The churches on the island of Senja is listed as belonging to Trondenes in Trondhjems Reformats, but making it a separate location probably makes sense. Using the name of the whole island seems fine to me, but it should be part of Hålogaland/Nordlandene.
Bardodalen: According to wikipedia Bardu was founded in 1791 as a result of people moving there and clearing land after an extreme flood in southern Norway. They moved there from Østerdalen and Gudbrandsdalen.
This information is confirmed by SNL: https://snl.no/Bardu
Trondhjems Reformats mentions two churches within the current location (I think, it’s hard to tell the green on of Senja and Bardodalen on the small island between the two locations), both which are listed as belonging to the parish of Trondenes: Dyrøy (“Diurøyen”), Lenvik (“Lengeuijg”),
I would suggest renaming the location to “Beardu” which is the Sami name the Norwegian name is thought to origin from, and since the place with that name had no other permanent inhabitants than Sami until towards the end of the game’s timeline. Beardu means long, steep valley, so combining Beardu with “dalen” in the name in addition doesn’t really make sense.
Troms mostly seems fine at first glance. If you want an older version of the name (likely used at the start of the game’s timeline) it should be renamed to “Trums”. Trondhjems Reformats lists is as one of Norland’s parishes.
Raisa may be ok. The various modern places with name in them all seem to have different spellings in Sami. “Ráisa” may be more accurate, but I don't know Sami. Unclear if/when it was considered part of Nordlandene or Finnmarken. I don’t see any reason to use a non-Sami name for it. Trondhjems Reformats does not appear to list any churches there (but I may have missed some).
Finnmark(en)(or alternatively Vardøhus): The current name “Finnmark” was not adopted as an administrative name until 1787. “Finnmarken” or variations of it was however used as a general term for the area. Sources for the locations here are rather sparse in most cases. Trondhjems Reformats does for example not bother sorting the information by parishes other than listing them in the order and adding what appears to be the name the parish. It also states that the people are not obliged to pay tithes as they are other places, but rather to serve the local churches eagerly (my simplified translation).
Alta is Probably ok. A Sami name wouldn’t hurt. Trondhjems Reformats lists a few churches in the location, but these are mostly on small islands (like Loppa) which it would be odd to name the entire location after.
Kautokeino: Consider using the Sami name “Guovdageaidnu”(?, again, I don't know Sami). Other names are supposedly derived from this (according to wikipedia).
Karasjok: Consider using the Sami name “Kárášjohka”. Johka is Sami for river. The Kara- part of the Norwegian name is either from Sami or Finish (according to wikipedia).
Porsanger: Consider renaming to the Sami name “Porsángu”. It was a Sami area until around 1750 according to SNL (and wikipedia).
Hammerfest: The name seems fine. No Sami origin for the “Hammerfest name”. Other places within the location may have older Sami names, but Hammerfest eventually ended up being fairly important.
Deatnu: The only current location with an actual Sami name in Finnmark? No changes needed?
Vardø: Consider renaming it to “Vargøy”, a modern form of the original name. The origin of this name could either be Sami or related to the Norse word for “Wolf”. The name first appears in 1307, and again in 1340 where it is called “Varghœya”: https://www.dokpro.uio.no/cgi-bin/middelalder/diplom_vise_tekst.cgi?b=7485
It is unclear exactly when the name changed to Vardø, but it does appear in various source at least from around 1500.
Varanger: This is called “Sør-Varanger” today. I believe Varanger traditionally refers to the peninsula in the location valled Vardø. Consider using another name, preferrably a Sami name.
Culture
There should be some Sami presence From the locations Alstahaug and Hattfjelldal and southwards, including large parts of Trøndelag (Nord and Sør) and Jämtland, possibly as far south as the northern parts of Oppland, Hedmark and Idre in Dalarna. It may very well be impossible to even get rough estimates for how big a percentage of the population which should be considered “Sørsamer”/”Sydsamer” in 1337, but Norwegian and Swedish wikipedia does at least have fairly long articles, with a long list of sources. The articles appears to have a bit different focus, both appears focusing on the presence in the respective countries: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sørsamer https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydsamer
Potential event
In 1345 (most likely at September 11th- 13th) there was a mudslide 3 kilometers north of Støren which is said to have resulted in a 33 meters high dam of mud (or more likely sand and rocks) blocking the river Gaula. This resulted in a 14 km long lake being formed above the dam. On September 14th the dam broke, causing a giant flood wave. The flood has been claimed to have killed about 500 people in total (about half of which were locals, and the rest traveling people) and remains the biggest natural disaster in Norway until today in terms of casualties. It is also said to have added significantly to the land areas at the estuary of the river. https://www.nb.no/items/URN:NBN:no-nb_digitidsskrift_2015071682124_001?page=59 https://www.nb.no/items/URN:NBN:no-nb_digibok_2017060248094?page=73 https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauldalsraset
Lakes and rivers:
At the very least Mjøsa should be added. It is significantly larger than Siljan in Sweden which is included.
Glomma is partly included in EU4, so it would be disappointing if it wasn't in project Caesar.
Edit: Added som missing punctuation and words. There are likely more.
This is obviously not meant to be an in game map, but provocation for someone else to make a better one. As a base I used jat85's map and OpenTopoMap, of course they did not line up perfectly. Did an edge detect for the latter and drew over that some of the largest islands or groups of islands. So there's not all of them, not because I would not want them but because I think PDX has some minimum size for islands, even when they're not a single location.
Red and yellow are today's Åland, green is mostly today's Parainen. I don't know how the administrative divisions went in 1337. Red ones should obviously by Åland. Green ones either added to the mainland locations, or made into a new location. Parainen could be it's name as the name has been known from 12th century. Originally Finnish, according to wiki Swedes became a majority in 14th century. Swedish name Pargas. Whether the yellow ones should be part of Åland or Parainen or their own location, I don't know.
I separated the yellows from the reds inspired by the maps in this. The story, without a map, in English wiki. I've also heard the story with no mention of Ramstedt and the Japanese spotting the fakery by themselves, I guess both like to stress their own role.
EDIT: Apparently also Åland was under the bishopry of Åbo, perhaps that should be reflected in the game provinces.
Fana should be changed to Os or Osøyro. there is also an older name that is Ous. the reason is that Fana is in the bergen location and that the area of the Fana location is very close to that of Os. Frammnes would not be wrong ether since that seems to be what the skipsrede is called.
there should also be ocean between Stord and Tysnes so that it is not one big island in the Moster location.
the Moster location could also be called Njardarlog or Jarsøy since it is an older name for tysnes. njardarlog is from the 16th century and jarsøy before year 1000
could not post the link to my source but the book is called Soga for Fusa, Hålandsdal og Strandvik. 1 you can find it on Nb.no
I agree with Finland having more likes. I like how the lakes were done in HOI4, with all of them behaving as obstacles. I tried to use this philosophy in my map too as long as it didn't conflict with province borders. The Turku archipelago looks better here, though I like the idea someone here had of showing even more islands. Perhaps the mass of islands could even be made into a location?
Bergenhus Län: Rename it to Hordaland. And spit out Sogn and Firda as suggested by Fjellfyr here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...024-scandinavia.1695964/page-16#post-29779603
I do however struggle to see any real benefit of splitting the locations much as Fjellfyr suggested. Primarily because I fear the gameplay would suffer significantly due to the low population each location would end up with. A few more locations probably wouldn’t hurt though. If you don’t mind adding at least a few hundred extra people per new location, more locations would be quite nice.
Quick response, I agree. Johan responded to me and I realised I'd used the wrong provinces as measuring stick. I did a speedy (so ignore wasteland borders) much amended map with much fewer suggestions that would be +3 locations for Firda/Sogn together here, splitting sogndal once, one province for ytre sogn, and reclaiming indre nordfjord from wasteland. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...f-july-2024-scandinavia.1695964/post-29781003
I do think the population in the region is a bit under what would make sense both based on 1600s population for Vestlandet and based on leidang. Firda having 7066 pop while being expected to field 1000 oarsmen (and more crew on top) feels off, for example. In particular when it has a third of ytre sogn on the map. Northern Trøndelag is much worse off in this regard on Caesars' map but its still notable here.
For what you said about Molde, an alternative name could be Veøy, which was a tingstad and trade spot. Olav Håkonsson made an official pronouncement in 1384 that trade in Romsdal should happen on Veøy, as the kaupang of the region, though it would lose its importance from the 1500s and onwards.
Other than what you've written, I'd make a general suggestion for them to revisit the fjords on the west coast. I've mentioned Firda and Sogn's waterways, but Hordaland also has a questionable coastline. Nordhordland, Bergen and Moster being the ones that look most off. Voss as a location also seem shifted too far south compared to IRL. Definitely hope to see more lakes added too, in particular Mjøsa.
There is quite a bit inconsistence in this naming. Several places have their Swedish name (Enare, Idensalmi, Kajana, etc) which were not under Swedish rule at the time, while others have their finnish names (Ristiina instead of Kristina, Mikkeli instead of St. Michel, Porvoo instad of Borgå, etc), which were under the rule of Sweden at the time.
Might be more consistent to do either or, not a random mix?
There is quite a bit inconsistence in this naming. Several places have their Swedish name (Enare, Idensalmi, Kajana, etc) which were not under Swedish rule at the time, while others have their finnish names (Ristiina instead of Kristina, Mikkeli instead of St. Michel, Porvoo instad of Borgå, etc), which were under the rule of Sweden at the time.
Might be more consistent to do either or, not a random mix?
As I understand it, this does not reflect the intended state of the game, but rather that completing dynamic naming for all locations is a work in progress. The final game will almost certainly solve these issues.
As I understand it, this does not reflect the intended state of the game, but rather that completing dynamic naming for all locations is a work in progress. The final game will almost certainly solve these issues.
Yeah, that’s why name suggestions in Finland should contain both the finnish name and the swedish name whenever possible, so they can add both into the game.
