Medina Almogran

Note: This article is Canon, but it is not complete. Feel free to expand it.

Medina Almogran (cf. Arabic "Confluence City") is the capital city of the Umayyad Caliphate in New Andalusia and one of the major cities of Alaxia.
Prior to European settlement, the location of Medina Almogran was a major Mississippian cultural center. Caliph Yusuf I chose it for the location of his capital, which was made official in the 1825 Constitution. During the 19th century, Medina Almogran developed as a major port on the Mississippi River, as well as a hub of continental rail traffic.

Neighborhoods

The Alcazar District: While the Alcazar itself is legally a separate entity, urban expansion has turned it into an enclave.

• Because the adjacent neighborhoods are legally part of a separate jurisdiction, a few enterprising locals have set up clubs and restaurants in the Alcazar, allowing them to sell alcohol outside the Winemarket.

The Alzoco: Medina Almogran's market district was planned for a city much smaller than Medina Almogran became.

• Arcadia: Rather than trying to modernize them, the Alzoco accepted defeat, roofed them over, and closed them to vehicle traffic, converting them into arcades.

Chinatown: The transcontinental railroad through the Cordillera was built with Chinese labor. The ongoing (and ultimately victorious) Taiping Civil War caused many of the laborers involved to stay on the west end of the Almogran metropolitan area.

• Chinese restaurants: Many are actually Hui restaurants, with noodle-heavy halal menus. As all of them are outside the Winemarket, no restaurant in Chinatown may legally sell alcohol; the more drinking-friendly establishments often have large window signs (written in Chinese) recommending certain liquor stores.
• Fireworks: Following Taiping practice, Christmas Day is usually celebrated with fireworks.
• The Night Market: Medina Almogran is home to one of Alaxia's oldest night markets, and the second-largest after San Ysidro's. Unlike Almogran's other markets, the Night Market is defined less by what it sells than by its hours of operation, which are defined in relation to the Yusufiyya Mosque's adhan al-isha and thus change slightly throughout the year.

Winemarket: Following the practice of Umayyad Seville, alcohol is regulated by zoning laws in Medina Almogran, and can only be legally produced or sold in a neighborhood far from the Alzoco. Almogran's political life involves regular fights over expanding, redrawing, or abolishing the Winemarket altogether.

• La Cidrerie: A family of Montagnards runs Almogran's only legal cider distillery. It serves as the namesake and de facto banquet hall for La Sidrería, the UCNA's oldest party coalition.

Yusufia: It's stereotyped as a sleepy, straight-laced neighborhood completely in the pocket of the Believers, although that isn't actually the case.

• Hamam: Medina Almogran's public baths were built as close to the Yusufiyya Mosque as possible. Most of the poorer neighborhoods (not all of which have heated water) rely on the Hamam for their baths, and there have been riots when the Hamam changes its hours without advance notice.
• Yusufiyya Mosque: The UCNA's foremost center of Islamic scholarship. It includes mainland Alaxia's largest extant madrasa, although Cuba has several larger ones.

Type

Metropolis

Population

909000

Location under

New Andalusia

Included Locations

• Alcazar

Owning Organization

Umayyad Caliphate in New Andalusia

Architecture

Nobody would recognize the term "Moorish Revival," but everyone would understand it. The first city was a pastiche of the ones before it: Almedina de Mexico, Umayyad Seville, a Cuban flair, subtle notes of Cordoba and even Damascus.
Medina Almogran is a calligraphic city. In some places the Arabic is constructed, Kufi banalities of colored tiles and molded concrete: street crossings saying cross here, lines on the train platform urging readers to stay behind them. In others it sprouts like grass through sidewalk cracks, evergreen or changing with the seasons, always wild and often beautiful. Rarely legal; Arabic calligraphy is the last graffiti to come down. Silence and patience, the alleys whisper. See nothing, say nothing.