Triparia

The Kingdom of Triparia is the oldest of the states of the Empire, founded in February 1998.

The Kingdom’s capital is Pittsburgh. Its name comes from the Latin ripa, “riverbank”, and the Greek tri “three”, signifying the famous Three Rivers at whose confluence Pittsburgh was founded: the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and the Ohio.  (A related Latin word, riparia, is the scientific name of the bank swallow, or sand martin, a small bird whose worldwide range includes the Kingdom and the Empire.)

The Kingdom’s territory consists of eleven counties, from Marshall in the southwest to Butler in the northeast, covering a total of 6205 square miles, an area slightly smaller than Hawai’i. Pittsburgh, the capital, is in Allegheny County. The terrain is hilly, and dominated by the Three Rivers.

The Kingdom’s government, as of old, is a constitutional monarchy. The Constitution (as of 2012) provides for an appointed Senate, which has the power to veto acts of the Monarch.  This mechanism is intended to provide flexibility and discussion appropriate to a micronational system. The current Monarch is Shawn Clayton Knight, styled His Majesty the King of Triparia, born 18 September 1973 in Greensburg, Westmoreland County, now part of the Kingdom. He was the founding Monarch of the Kingdom in 1998, and was restored to the Throne in 2010 by the acclamation of the Kingdom’s people and his predecessor.

Owing to historical precedents, the Monarch of Triparia is also, by the Imperial constitution, the Emperor of Septempontia, and as such is styled His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Septempontia.

Triparia’s principal highways are Interstate 76 (the Turnpike), which enters at Westgate near New Castle and leaves at Laurel Hill near Donegal; Interstate 79, running north to south from Slippery Rock to Mount Morris; and Interstate 70, from the Ohio River in the west until it joins the Turnpike at New Stanton.

Arms

Per bend azure and gules, on a bend sable between six roundels counterchanged fimbriated argent, a mullet of the last.

Meaning: The founding seven citizens of the Kingdom: the Monarch, three Senators, and three Justices.