Yerljasqar Province

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Yerljasqar Province
Pesej za Yerljasqar
Pesej sa Yerljaskar
Flag of Yerljasqar Province Coat of arms of Yerljasqar Province
Flag Coat of arms
Motto:
The great frontier
Kryf: An sie vrotirye.
Yar: Ŏn sije vrotirije
Location of Yerljasqar Province
Location of Yerljasqar Province
Admitted on 2 January, 1904
Location Kryfona Kingdom
Capital Gelaa
Official languages Kryfona, Yaraan
Ethnic groups • Standard Kryfona 88%
• Tuszkean 6%
• Arieles 4%
• Yaraan 1%
• Other 1%
Religion no official religion
Demonym Yerljasqare/a
Area
- Total 15,543 sq mi (‪‪‪40,256.2‬ km2)
- Water 90 sq mi (‪‪233.1 km2)
Highest point Mount Sariwe (4,573 ft)
Lowest point Osinagare Flats (1,001 ft)
Legislature Unicameral
Upper House House of Yerljasqar
Lower House none
Population
- Estimate 1,269,301
- Density 81.6/sq mi (31.5/km2)

Yerljasqar Province (Kryf.: Pesej za Yerljasqar; For. Kryf. /ˈpɛˌsɛ zɑ ˈjɛrlˌɑs.kɑr/) is one of the 19 modern provinces of the Kryfona Kingdom, having been incorporated into the Kingdom on 2 Jaunary, 1904. It is the youngest province in the Kryfona Kingdom, roughly in the middle in terms of size, and is the second smallest province in terms of population. Yerljasqar is named for the explorer Vazere Yerljasqar, who was one of the first settlers to the region in the middle 1500s. The capital of Yerljasqar is Gelaa, which is one of the easternmost cities in the Kryfona Kingdom, and contains a little over a third of the population of the province. Another third is found in the city of Maszje, to the southwest of Gelaa. The majority of Yerljasqar's economy is based in industry, with a smaller emphasis on agriculture in the rural regions of the province.

Like Vyfarla, Yerljasqar was first settled by Kryfona during the 1500s, and the region was only lightly settled due to its lack of communication with the rest of the Kryfona Kingdom at the time. Throughout the century, the province developed an independent culture, which in the time since has come to flavor the province and be a staple of its society. Yerljasqar was boosted in population significantly during the early- and mid-1600s when the Yaraan Confederation collapsed, and was integrated into the Kryfona Kingdom. Growth remained slow, however, and much of the province remained out of contact with the greater Kingdom until the late 1600s, when a rudimentary road network was finally developed that connected Vyfarla and Yerljasqar with the Yaraan Autonomous Province. The first census taken in the area, which came in 1650, found roughly 38,000 people. By the year 1800, this population had exploded and topped 275,000.

In 1815, after a petition by the Kryfona of the region to be incorporated into the greater Kingdom, the Yerljasqar Territory was organized, in the process establishing what would become the modern borders of the province. The region that became the Yerljasqar Territory by then had a population of about 300,000, almost all of which was centered in the two cities of Maszje and Gelaa. Gradually, however, the proportion of the population these two cities held dropped, and today these cities represent only two thirds of the provincial population. What began as a small trickle of settlers in the early 1800s grew to a torrent by the end of the century, and many of these settlers came to live in the vast and largely-uninhabited mountain ranges in the eastern half of the province. Many of the small towns that now dot the Yerljasqar countryside were established during the 1800s, in which over 350,000 people migrated to the province. In particular, the two cities of Ganzise and Diriuszarazses, established during the boom in population, were beneficiaries of mass migration to the province. Thousands came to call both towns home within a decade of their establishment, and today the mountains of Yerljasqar are populated by a significant number of people.

The Yerljasqar of the middle-and-late 1800s was a quiet one, owing to the small population of the territory and the disconnected nature of many of the cities that had been established there. The secluded nature of many of the cities of Yerljasqar remained a draw for people from the larger cities, and the territory continued to grow for the entirety of the 1800s. It was not until the turn of the century however that the territory would be subject to national attention. Shortly after the outbreak of the Kryfona Civil War in September of 1900, troops under the command of the Kryfona Royalist Movement rose up in the territory's capital of Gelaa, ultimately taking it in the 23 day long Battle of Gelaa. Gelaa was one of the first cities to fall to the Movement, and remained in the hands of the Royalists until the end of the war in 1902. Later on in the war, during 1901, Movement troops marched on and captured Maszje during the Battle of Maszje, securing Royalist control of the territory.

After the end of the war, Yerljasqar was considered for ascension into the Kryfona Kingdom as a province–its population by this point was around 500,000–and the matter was eventually put to a vote at the tail end of 1903. Unlike neighboring Vyfarla, where there had been significant opposition both within the general population and the Kryfonsparliszaiye to ascension that ultimately created a crsis, there was no controversy regarding Yerljasqar's ascension, and the bill to incorporate the province passed unanimously–with some delay–in the Kryfonsparliszaiye on 2 January, 1904. As of 2017, Yerljasqar is the youngest province of the Kingdom and the last territory of the Kryfona Kingdom to be organized into a province.

Post-ascension Yerljasqar has remained generally out of the headlines; there were several assassinations in the province during the Yaraan Political Revolution and the concurrent Tuszkean Political Revolution, but far and away the largest event in the region's post-ascension history was the Black Saturday wildfires, which occurred in 1961. The wildfires were unprecedented in the province's history, and killed 79 people, representing the largest loss of life in the region since the Civil War. No incident of comparable magnitude has occurred in the province since.

Yerljasqar is the easternmost province in the Kryfona Kingdom, and one of the three northernmost provinces in the Kingdom. It shares a western border with Vyfarla Province and a southwestern border with Fyranasaa Province, and its entire southern border is shared with the Arieles Kingdom.