Watersauga

Watersauga, officially The Province of Watersauga (Traditional Chinese: 沙灣省; French: Province de Watersauga; 2015 population 1,200,000 ), is a province and an autonomous country in Nicholasland. It is bounded north by the Greater McCallister, east by the Cosmoplay, west by the Free State of Torbury and south by Pacific Ocean. Watersauga's territory also include a 256-km² territory, Port Run, which is enclaved within the Region of Cosmoplay.

Originally called a city-state, the autonomous country has quite a large area. In January 2015, local legislators motioned to reconstitute Watersauga as a Province under the Nicholasland. Under the 2015 Nicholasland Geographic Nomenclature Amendment Act, Watersauga had re-constituted from a city-state into a province. This is solely a name change, and will come into full effect on 1 January 2016.

It is the third most populous subdivision in Nicholasland, after the Gravenhurst.

Etymology
The name Watersauga came from a mix of the English word "Water" and the Objiwe word "Misi-zaagiing", which can be romanized into "Mississauga". The former formed the prefix, while the latter formed the suffix. Together, the word "Watersauga" means the "Water at the mouth of a great river". The "Water" describes the abundance of lakes, rivers in the city state, as well as Pacific Ocean located just south of the territory. The "mouth of a great river" refers to the mouth of the Dawson River at Old Watersauga, the oldest settlement and the largest city in the city-state.

First Kingdom: Initial Settlement (4th Century BCE - 1562)
Due to Watersauga's pleasant location just off the Watersauga Harbour, the area was settled long ago. According to literature of the indigenous Chinese population, the area has been settled since 4th century BCE, as a result of spread of population from the original point of settlement on the continent (which is the nowadays Long Region). As the population move west beginning around the 10th century BCE, the indigenous population reached the mouth of the Dawson River around the 4th century BCE and begin settling in what is now Tsang-Mo-Um-Sha, where a small fishing village began.

British Watersauga (1562 - 1867)
Settlement remains to be small, but self-sustainable for the next tens of centuries. In 1562, by the Multi-Cultural Referendum, the Imaginary Lands of Nicholas collapsed, and the small fishing village was on its own as a small village-state, and the local population started to populate the mainland (now Old Watersauga). It is first recorded in an unnamed English explorer's literature in 1708, that he has discovered the region, and he and his crew begin settling here. Soon after, the British government begin colonizing this initial territory, and naming it "Watersauga" as per the local indigenous Chinese and Objiwe languages. The territory's initial extent was the shoreline from Port Credit to Old Watersauga, where the crown reserves all the fishing right along the coastline.

Under British administration, Watersauga was a dominion, not a city-state.

Province of Watersauga (2016 - )
Under the 2015 Nicholasland Geographic Nomenclature Amendment Act, the former City-State of Watersauga has changed its name to the Province of Watersauga. This came into effect on 1 January 2016.

Geography
As redwood (sequoioideae) grows naturally on the shores of the Watersauga harbour, the tree has been adopted as the city-state's symbol effective 1 January 2015.

Administrative Divisions
The City of Watersauga is divided into municipalities, each belonging to unofficial development corridors. In addition, the City has a crown colony (or effectively, an exclave), namely Port Run. Port Run is subdivided into 28 principalities.

Development corridors are strictly for planning purposes and do not have legislation, judicial, and administrative power. There is, however, a government in the form of a committee board, allowing residents to discuss and to propose to the parliament the local urban development needs. As such, a municipality can belong to multiple corridors.

The city-state is also grouped into "cultural sectors", which are unofficial groups or agglomeration of municipalities that share the same cultural or language background. This is to encourage partnerships within these municipality groups for further growth and business opportunities. The sectors are also an adaptation of the French Cultural Hub of Gravenhurst Region.


 * Sources: Census Watersauga (2014)

The above chart did not include Port Run, or any of its principalities. Were Port Run to be considered as one city, it would rank as the second largest of the city-state.