Location:
        26S-30 S, 88-94 E

        Land area:
        226,600 km2: 610 km West to East, 380 km North to South

        Terrain:
        The South Coast of Mont is terrain similar to the Natal Coast of South Africa, where it rises 1000 meters in altitude over 65 km. From the coast the terrain rises up into the Sierra Nevada, which is rather like the Pyrenees in terrain and many peaks rise up to 3400 meters above sea level. On the Northern side of Mont the slopes are more gentle than in the South Coast, these foothills descend down to a flat coastal plain 610 km long and 160 km wide. These plains are very flat with the first 80 km from coast having a elevations of less than 50 meters above sea level. Also near the North Coast there are many lagoons and swamps.

        Climate:
        Mont has several different climates according to region. Generally wetter and milder on the land South of the Mountains and hotter and drier on the land North of the Mountains. For every 150 meters above sea level the temperatures drops by 1*C. Hot mountain winds called Foehns can really heat the side of Mont is it directed to. The South Coast has a warm temperate climate with lots of rainfall. Annual rainfall is from (1200-2000 mm) and falls in all seasons. Winters are mild with daytime temperatures from 17-20*C at sea level. Summers are warm and humid with daytime temperatures from 23-28*C at sea level. Since most winds in Mont blow in a Southerly, South-Easterly and South-Westerly direction, it [the South Coast?] gets the vast majority of Foehn winds and has quite hot summers with daytime temperatures from a humid 28*C to a really hot 35*C. Winters tend to milder, however can change from mild to quite warm with daytime temperatures from 19-28*C. Annual rainfall is generally from 800-900 mm, and 60% of the annual rainfall falls between November and April. The mountains tend to have a maritime temperate climate not too different to New Zealand and Tasmania's highlands depending on altitude, with rainfall from 700 mm in the Northern valleys to nearly 2000 mm on higher peaks. The winter snow line tends to be around 2000 meter line and in summer covering on the highest peaks. However in summer occasional snowfall at 3000 meter line is not uncommon.

        Geology:
        Mont's Mountains has a geology similar to New Caledonia. Firstly the main rock type is ocean crust, this occurs rarely because ocean crust is heavier than continental rocks. Also these rocks bring a rich mix of metals. They are pieces of Gondwana which broke off, Mont did this more recently at 45 million years ago. The coastal plain was formed by loess despots from the mountains to the North, which produces some of world's more fertile soils.

        Vegetation:
        The lowland regions up to the 500-800 meter line are covered in warm Temperate evergreen forest which is dominated by Acaurias and Podocarps and generally have undergrowth of cycads or fern trees (on South Coast) or no undergrowth (on the Northern Plains). The highlands from 500 to 1400 meter are covered in tall Temperate rainforest similar to ones in Chile or New Zealand. From the 1500 to 2000 meter, forests are covered in shorter Nothofagus trees growing only 15 meters high, beyond that up to 2300 meters there is scrubland similar to ones that grow in Southern Patagonia and Tasmania's Highlands. Beyond that it's just tussock grassland or bare rock. There are no mountain ice caps in Mont. However in the last ice age, ice sheets covered down to 3000 meter line.

        Wildlife:
        Mont, unlike Australia, is very young geologically, with soils which are far more nutrient rich than Australia.  The El-Nino/La Nina cycle, which makes regular plant growth impossible and screws up farming to a degree in Australia, does not affect Mont that much.  These factors in Australia of poor soils and irregular rainfall led to energy efficient marsupials, not energy intensive placental mammals to dominate the wildlife.

        Mont has far more advantages than Australia with it's more nutrient rich soils and the El-Nino/La Nina cycle not affecting it much, which has led the placental mammals dominating the wild and marsupials being a poor second. Mont's small size and heavily forested area for the last 50 million years has kept animal size small, the largest species is a 1 meter high Horse-Deer, weighting 90-100 kg, the largest mammal carnivore is a relative of Thyl found in the South American fossil record, about the size of small leopard weighting from 25-45 kgs.

        There are three groups of placental mammals on Mont. Firstly the entdentates which includes tree sloths, small anteaters, armadillos and a species of ground sloth the size of Black Bear. These island's entdentates are quite similar to their South American counterparts, however they are smaller in size.

        Second are the notoungulates. This islands group is related to the same group as the ones in the South American fossil record. They take many forms, including horse-deer creatures with three to five toes ranging from the size of small dogs to small deer, others taking forms of rodents and lagomorphs. There are 5 species of horse deer ranging from 20-150 kgs.

        Mont has many species of monitor lizards and large snakes, some of them poisonous. There is similar bird life to Australia, with parrots of many kinds. Some species of flightless bird exist with a Rhea-sized Ratre which actually looks like a cassowary and other smaller ground birds. Large Monitor lizards the size of Komodo dragon, 4-6 meter long Alligator looking Crocodiles which can eat Ground Sloths and Horse Deer on occasion, along with 6 meter long snakes thrive in an absence of huge sized mammal carnivores.

        There is a family of ornivorous/carnivorous marsupials or opossum-like creatures which range from large rats to Lecoast sea lions.  Small penguins live at Mont and the coast is the wintering grounds of Humpback whales.

        Natural resources:
        - Huge Mineable deposits of copper, silver and gold, comparable to the resources of the same metals in Papua New Guinea and Andes Mountains.
        - Smaller, more localized deposits of lead, tin, zinc, cobalt, nickel, chrome, manganese.
        - Tiny Oil, Natural Gas and Brown Coal reserves, too small to be viable.
        - The Northern Plains, which cover some 43% of country and has some of world's most fertile farmland with soil as fertile as the Northern Plains of Germany and Holland.
        - Lots of rivers and narrow valleys to dam and produce hydroelectric power.
        - Vast forests with good hardwood and softwoods.
        - Small convergence water zone of warmer tropical water and cooler temperate
 waters, creating rich fishing grounds.

        History:
        Late 1521: Sebastian Del Cano, on the ship Victoria, lands at an East Coast harbor, which would in the future be the capital of Santa Monica. They resupply and repair the ship, and the divergence with OTL is that more of Del Cano's crew survived the journey from Java back to Spain. They call this island Isla del Montana or Island of Mountains, since they saw mountains when they first sighted the island. Also the Spanish have knowledge of a new island. The Dutch would alter the name to Mont as they settled the island. Over the next 130 years a few travelers visit the island, with minimal effect on the wildlife.

        1650: The Dutch establish a colony with a port at Santa Monica and a farming colony in the local area surrounding the mouth of Sellos river. The original colony had 600 White Dutch/German settlers and 300 African Slaves from Mozambique and Angola. It was originally established as a supply stop for trading ships from the Cape of Good Hope to Java and a place to grow tobacco for European market.

        1650-1815: The colony grows in population and wealth from the growing of tobacco and as a supply stop for trading ships. The main white settlers are Calvinist Protestants from the Netherlands, Modern Day Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. The Main places Black Slaves were brought from were Mozambique, Zanzibar.

        By 1815 Mont was a thriving colony with 48,000 Whites and 32,000 slaves. The Monters, as they calledthemselves, are far more free thinking than the Boers. However were a very god-fearing lot. By 1815 the population was about 90% Protestant, 7% Catholic, 3%Jewish. The Monters were govern via Governor appointed by the Dutch government, after the early disaster of rule by the Dutch East India company.

        1805-1815: The British occupied Mont for a while during the Napoleonic War.  It was returned to the Dutch after the War, like the East Indies.

        1820-1840: The invention of the cotton gin made cotton growing in Mont profitable. Immigrant and Native businessmen start setting up plantations over wider areas and are bringing in African Slaves. Unlike OTL, where the Cape Colony Boers went on the great trek to Transvaal, a considerable fraction of them, though not a majority emigrate to Mont.  In the 1830's Dutch settlers, mostly Protestant, are coming to Mont as well as German settlers. Roads start being built into the interior. Many veterans of the Napoleonic Wars are settled there, at least partly because of the associations of certain units with France. This continues with the deportation of suspected revolutionaries and untrusted groups involved with Belgian independence. Their deportation is not as convicts working out sentences, but much more like the French in New Caledonia. For the Dutch colonial government, these deportees caused only a minor headache.  Despite this Belgium becomes independent since some of the deportees were wrongfully accused of the crimes. German immigrants start arriving in Mont on assisted passage mostly plantation owners,  small farmers or higher ranking workers. Some 4,000 German-Russians and Ukrainians, after their failure to settle Parana state in Brazil in the 1850's, decide to immigrate to Mont to help the government settle the west coast plain. The west coast plain has a dry Mediterranean climate with mild wet winters and dry hot summers. They founded the City of Odessa on the West Coast.

        1840-1860: Cotton growing and its wealth promotes the establishment of railways in Mont.  These new industries and railway building allow more German laborer immigrants to come to Mont. More plantations are established and more immigrants arrive. After 1848 the Dutch government gave Mont complete self-government in internal affairs. An  unicameral States or Staten was established in 1849 with voting rights for men who owned property. Slavery was abolished in the Dutch empire in 1858, the politicians in the Staten established  Racial segregation laws similar to Jim Crow acts, Southern US States. These laws separated Blacks and Whites into separate public places and laws also mandated that blacks be paid lower wages than whites.

        1860-1870 The vast wealth generated by cotton boom and the cotton shortage during the American Civil War created more money for already pretty wealthy Mont, although a lot of money at the manufacturing stage of the cotton was done back in the Netherlands. Also the mining of Pericous minerals was earning the colony quite a bit of money.

        1870-1890: Mont was very prosperous country in these two decades and the local elite grew rich. In fear of powerful forces attacking Mont and also the fact that the Dutch wanted Mont to pay for some of it's defense a local section of Dutch Army was established and a Naval base established with dry-docks.

        1900:  Present day in Mont.

        Population of Mont in 1900:
        975,000 (585,000 Whites, 390,000 Blacks)

        Religions:
        Protestant (Calvinists and Lutheran mostly) 76%,  Roman Catholic 20% , Jewish 3%, Other 1%

        Immigration:
        288,000 immigrants came to Mont from 1815-1900 increasing the population from 80,000 to 975,000. The Government encouraged immigrants from Northern and Central Europe in particular German, Scandinavia, Austria and the Netherlands.  The immigrants were made up of 130,000 Black Africans;  51,300 Dutch; 6,300 Eastern Europeans and Russians; 7,900  Jewish Europeans; 5,000 Southern Europeans; 16,000 Scandinavians; 2,000 Other Europeans; 61,000 Germans and German-Russians;  9,500  French and Belgians.  Because some people were counted in two ethnic groups, this gives a total of 289,000 immigrants.

Back to the Main Page.