22/11/2025

Placing countries from Ace Attorney

i'm a big ace attorney fan, even if the games' replay value is close to nil. however, i'm also big into languages and fictional countries, and the series has its fair share of those... but still none that i like

borginia, cohdopia, khura'in and zheng fa are somewhat deliberately generic, and i understand why. representing real countries that you don't know all that much about is a near-impossible task, so it's easier to just conjure countries with the right vibe out of thin air. besides, the implication that all of these countries are laden with scandals and corruption and only export stereotypes isn't exactly good pr

this is why most people depict them as entirely new countries, independent of the countries that exist in our world. however, i've always found this to be a bit cheap, and these countries are often in places that don't make much ethnic or geopolitical sense. for example, why would zheng fa exist as a stray (han) chinese republic when china's whole gig is to have one united han empire? why is cohdopia either uncharacteristically german (without becoming sorbian) or a former yugoslav republic larger than serbia? why do ace attorney fans accept as gospel that borginia is a northern european country?

instead, i thought it'd be an interesting thought experiment to map the fictional countries of ace attorney to real countries in the real world. only then do the distribution of ethnicities and the countries' histories make any real sense. and so, today i present my headcanon, which should also be lore compliant

DISCLAIMER: this is just a fun project. no offense is intended towards the countries mentioned, and none of the countries selected are a perfect match. i'm also a massive idiot, so if i am culturally ignorant at any point, i apologize and i will rectify this post as soon as i can. i recognize that this is a cunningham's law way of learning about the world, but oh well
ALSO SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE APOLLO JUSTICE TRILOGY AND ACE ATTORNEY INVESTIGATIONS THANK YOU

Zheng Fa - Taiwan

let's start with an easier one. what country is han chinese, has an elected president, maintains good relations with the united states and survives the wrath of the people's republic of china? none other than the old republic of china itself, of course

zheng fa's japanese name of the western phoenix republic just about barely makes it as well. the kuomintang's ultimate goal is to retake the mainland, which you could see as the republic of china proper rising from the ashes like a phoenix. "western" is a bit contentious, but i mean it's west of japan so it technically counts if that's the exonym

the only breaking point for the analogy is interpol. shi-long lang is a high-ranking official in interpol, but the ROC hasn't been a member since 1984, and you could guess under whose pressure that decision was made. then again, since zheng fa doesn't identify itself as the republic of china, this could be the timeline where the DPP goes the extra mile and doesn't want anything to do with china at all

Khura'in - Bhutan

slightly harder, but still a little easy. bhutan is one of the chief inspirations for khura'in, and it was always implied that khura'in was somewhere in the himalayas. as such, if it's not china or india, then it's either nepal or bhutan

bhutan's a better match in terms of language and culture. the khura'inese script is closer to tibetan, the script dzongkha is written in, and the culture is largely defined by its religion and core values. in this case, buddhism is the stand-in for spirit channeling and the worship of the holy mother

the political history is perhaps a little more awkward. nepal's panchayat regime better fits the narrative of an absolute monarch consolidating every institution in the country and cracking down on all resistance. in comparison, bhutan's (attempted) ethnic cleansing in the 90's is much too extreme for khura'in. however, given that nepal is now a republic and bhutan is now a constitutional monarchy, khura'in's transition from the ga'ran regime to nahyuta's regency and rayfa's eventual coronation still makes bhutan a slightly better fit, i'd say

Cohdopia - Poland

the one and only "big" country on this list, which it was probably gonna be anyway. i wanted a country that was prone to splitting in two, with an isolationist/conservative side and a touristic/diplomatic side. it needed to be in europe, with a specific latin influence (quercus alba, colias palaeno) without being too obvious (manny coachen, deid mann, cece yew). finally, it needed to have german-inspired romanizations, as evidenced by the godawful h for a long vowel

i believe that poland is the closest match in every way. babahl is in the area of pomerania, greater poland and silesia; allebahst is masovia, lesser poland and podlachia. eastern poland is more conservative but houses the culturally dominant cities of warsaw and kraków, corresponding to allebahst and it being the owner of the real primidux statue. western poland is more industrial and progressive and just about contains the upper silesian coal basin, reflecting babahl and its whitcrystal oil industry

despite the good match, it wasn't the most obvious conclusion at first. i've considered other countries, but they usually fracture in the wrong way. romania is split in three: wallachia, moldavia and transsylvania. yugoslavia is a pipe dream in the modern world, and it split into at least six components. czechia was a really good candidate too, but bohemia already exists in the great ace attorney so that wasn't available

i believe it's fitting to close this off with COHDOPIA IS NOT YET LOST

Borginia - Lebanon

the descriptor "northern europe" can kiss my ass when it comes to borginia. i'm going to send these sons of bitches down south if it's the last thing i do

borginia is very heavily inspired by the cultures of the classical world, from spain to italy to mesopotamia to arabia to india. nevertheless, they have a very french naming scheme (zinc lablanc, romein letouse, lamiroir), so doubtless borginia was a former french colony. that narrows it down, but why'd i pick lebanon specifically?

what tipped me off here is the alif red statue. alif/aleph is the first letter of the semitic abjads and originally meant "ox" in the west semitic languages. the berber people with their tifinagh writing system are perhaps a closer aesthetic match to the hieroglyphs of borginian, but to the extent that it's relevant, alif is not a significant word in tamazight. besides, if we want to talk hieroglyphs and arabized people, why not pick someone closer to home?

the phoenician script has one degree of separation from the egyptian hieroglyphs, and it is the ancestor of.. probably the majority of writing systems in eurasia? furthermore, the phoenicians themselves were progenitors of technology and high culture in the iron age, which would naturally translate to the borginian appreciation of the fine arts. finally, phoenicia had the elusive tyrian purple dye, just like borginia has its cocoons that cure incuritis. the homeland of the phoenicians is now lebanon, which was a french colony until it wasn't anymore

even today, lebanon serves as a center for arabic culture, although the constant violence in the middle east makes the circumstances less than ideal for this analogy. still, the borginia we see in ace attorney is mostly the high-profile and invaluable stuff, and the crippling wealth inequality in lebanon allows for some tolerance

all this to bury the "northern europe" factoid right into the ground, down to the core where it'll go up in flames (just like klavier's guitar)

WHAT ABOUT THE GOLDSTRUCK REPUBLIC YOU COMPLETELY FORGOT THE GOLDSTRUCK REPUBLIC AREN'T YOU GONNA PLACE THE GOLDST

ur gay

so that's my headcanon. now let's hope ace attorney 7 does more for the netherlands than just giving a british prosecutor a vaguely dutch name. also khura'inese hurts to read and i want them to do better