Lao

The Tropicalian Territory of Lao, or simply Lao is a Tropicalian overseas territory located south-east of Tropicalis. It is a warm, ice-free island with palm trees and sunnier skies. It is one of Tropicalis' most popular destinations and resorts, hotels and spas can be found commonly throughout the island. Red puffles are also known to live within the island's forests and jungles after being introduced to the island sometime after its colonization.

Pre-History
Aside from the native crabs and sea creatures, the island was mostly uninhabited before penguin habitation. It is presumed that the very first penguins who ever visited Lao were Galapagos Penguins who arrived in the year 10 BC and set up small camps in caves, where they left behind tools and artefacts made of wood, clay and stone from the island's local resources.

Puffish Colonization
The islands were mostly left alone for many, many years only to be visited by 16th century pirates who used the islands' caves as hiding spots to store stolen goods. At one point, these pirates fled after being pursued by naval captain and pirate chaser Caspian, who briefly arrived at the shores of the island and drove the pirates away.

Though the island would still occasionally be a hiding spot for some pirates over the next couple of centuries, the island itself continued to remain virtually unclaimed and usually uninhabited for quite some time, until Puffish ships arrived on the shores in the 1800's to populate and colonize the island, looking for new land to compete with Castilla, whom they were sharing a colonial rivalry with. The Puffish sailors found some pirates docked on the other side of the main island, and subsequently engaged in a deadly battle with the pirates, who stubbornly insisted on staying, before putting their own claims on the islands.

A couple brutal battles later, the Puffish were triumphant in claiming the islands, and named the main island "Shore Island", and incorporated the entire island chain into the Territory of the Shore Islands. Despite all of their efforts, the colony itself was barely regarded by the government, not having much use for anything other than being a docking port for Puffish ships and an outpost. Looking to clear a few things off of their plate in order to better focus on more important colonies and possibly find more promising lands, the Puffish deliberately ceded control of the island and permanently vacated it in late 1842.

Re-Establishment
Around a couple years later, in 1845, explorers from the Kingdom of Tropicalis landed on the east side of the island and decided to take control of the deserted islands and re-named it "Lao", seeing potential use due to its proximity to the mainland. Due to its The island attracted many Galapagos Penguins because of it's warm climate and closer proximity to the equator. The penguins had discovered the pirates' hiding spots and hidden loot, and because of that decided to name the small and growing establishment "Doubloon".

However, the rival empire to the kingdom, the Imperial Empire of Sphenisdean, heard of this news, and decided to set up a camp on the northern side of the island, much to the ire and frustration of the kingdom after finding out about it. After many attempts at negotiation and little progress, a consensus on jurisdiction over the colony of Lao was never reached, making it a disputed and contested territory between the two monarchies, and was often the site of their many border disputes or undeclared conflicts.

Eventually, with the dissolution of the Imperial Empire of Sphenisdean and the subsequent negotiations, the entirety of Lao and its nearby island became a territory of the newly formed Republic of Tropicalis, no longer being disputed.

Khanzem War
The colony was occupied by Japalandese soldiers in 1914 during the Khanzem War, alongside much of mainland Tropicalis, with the Japalandese hoping to use this island as a strategic spot to launch further attacks. This was quite useful, as they were able to quickly reinforce and support any Khanzem troops invading Tropicalis at the time, although they were eventually beaten back by Tropicalis with the introduction of upgraded technology and Linium weaponry, forcing them to relinquish and vacate the islands.

Geography
Lao comprises mainly of a single larger island, named Lao Island, that includes its own central lake (which in turn containing it's own small island), and is surrounded by 9 other local islands and islets, making 10 islands total (not counting the lake island). The central lake on Lao Island is presumed to have been formed by volcanic and geological activity, most likely from the collapse of a once active volcano underneath the island.

Snow is completely non-existent on Lao, which has a mostly tropical and warm climate, much like the mainland and very similar to that of the Warmslates, which is still found incredibly strange and highly abnormal for Antarctica. This warm weather tends to attract many visitors, such as Galapagos Penguins, who prefer the warmth or are looking for a change of climate. The climate also makes it a good place to grow tropical flora and exotic fruits and plants.

Islands

 * Shore Island - Central island, main island of the territory. Named accordingly while under Puffish occupation, it is home to Moonstone Lake, a large central lake in the middle of the island connected to the sea via a river.
 * Horizion Island
 * Swashbuckle Islet
 * Mariner Islet
 * Exploration Island
 * Peso Island
 * Riptide Island
 * Mango Island
 * Java Islet
 * Offshore Islet

Towns and Settlements

 * Doubloon - Once a hub for hiding pirate treasure, it is now a fairly small but nevertheless busy town on the main island with several travel and other commercial businesses set up there. Doubloon has a population of 20,000 residents, most of whom are Galapagos penguins. The town also has a very small but still functional airport, which travellers and tourists often first arrive at when visiting Lao.


 * Horizon - A smaller town than Doubloon, Horizon is located on Horizon Island and is mostly comprised of resorts, large designated beach areas and hotels.

Economy
The island relies heavily on tourism and fishing, which is also a very popular hobby as well as a common thing for islanders to do and fish from Lao is often imported back to the mainland and to elsewhere around Antarctica. Lao has a large supply of fish, which usually swim in schools making lone fish less common. Lao's lack of skyscrapers and tall buildings gives tourists a good view of the island and the ocean as well as the sky, which is mostly clear.

Trivia

 * Most of the islanders haven't seen snow before.