Tirakhan

With a population of just over five million in the space of eight hundred square kilometres, Tirakhan is the Ariad's largest and most densely populated settlement. Tirakhan was founded around a century after the foundation of Glasshaven, its sister city, and for most of the cities' history was the smaller of the two settlements. Its larger size now is mostly due to an influx of immigrants, human and elfin, from southern regions in the last fifty years. This demographic shift has caused some political division in the city.

Demographics

The resident population of Tirakhan is predominantly human, with Inda making up around seventy percent of humans living in the city. There has been a small population of elves living in the city since its foundation, although in recent years this community has grown in size, mostly due to immigration from flatland regions.

Government

Tirakhan is an autonomously governed city, although it has close administrative ties to the surrounding tribe nations from which it imports the vast majority of its food, energy and raw goods. The city is democratic, with government offices represented proportionally from the five major political parties operating in the region.

Architecture

Tirakhan is located in a steep valley system a few miles upstream of the River Palua delta-estuary, in northern Muizgard. The River Palua divides the city, with three-quarters of its population living on the river's northern side. Most of the residential districts of the city lie in repurposed quarries which were originally used to build the foundations of the old city, where many of the original concrete buildings still stand.
The old city, the first part of Tirakhan to be built, has a grid layout. Subsequent planned districts were built to better take advantage of the valley's natural drainage systems; there are six of these districts in total, each reflecting the architecture of the decades they were built in. Although it is often mistaken for a modern phenomenon, the city has always been surrounded by informal slum districts, which are usually cleared and the residents relocated each time a new planned district is built.