The Population of ZANABIA

Penrock

28 Dec 2025 — 1 min read

People and Population, ZANABIA

ZANABIA is not a large country by maps, but it is vast by temperament.

At its heart live 30,000 citizens—people who were not born identical, not raised uniform, and certainly not encouraged to think alike. In ZANABIA, sameness is considered a design flaw. Every citizen carries a blend of stories, species, skills, quirks, and beliefs, stitched together by one quiet agreement: live well, live gently, and live honestly.

Alongside them are 5,000 residents from neighbouring provinces. These are long-stay thinkers, makers, healers, scholars, bakers, tailors, musicians, engineers of odd contraptions, and professional tea drinkers. Some arrived for a season and stayed for a decade. Some came with a plan and forgot it entirely. ZANABIA does that to people—it rearranges priorities without asking permission.

Each year, approximately 100,000 visitors pass through ZANABIA. They come for festivals, for food, for wool markets, for winter games, for quiet conversations, or simply because they took a wrong turn and decided it felt right. Visitors are never rushed. They are not treated as customers, tourists, or statistics. They are treated as temporary Zanabians, which comes with responsibilities—like listening, laughing, and not being in a hurry.

ZANABIA is multi-faith by design and universal by instinct. Prayer, reflection, silence, chanting, meditation, laughter, and doing nothing at all coexist without needing labels. No belief competes for space here because space is not scarce. Respect is the shared currency, and curiosity is encouraged more than certainty.

The nation follows a no-war policy, not because it is naïve, but because it is practical. ZANABIA believes wars are expensive, noisy, inefficient, and deeply unfashionable. Disagreements are settled through dialogue, long walks, warm food, and the occasional public debate that ends in dessert.

Perhaps most remarkably, ZANABIA is self-sufficient. Energy, food, craft, culture, and care circulate internally. Nothing essential is outsourced—not even kindness.

ZANABIA does not aim to grow endlessly. It aims to grow well.
And so far, it is doing just that.

The ZANABIA Mall

If malls elsewhere are about shopping, the ZANABIA Mall is about loitering with purpose. Nobody really remembers when it opened. Some say it grew naturally, like a polite fungus, after Zanabians kept meeting “just for coffee” and accidentally built an economy around it. What everyone agrees on is this: you

The Ants of ZANABIA

In ZANABIA, not everything that is big is dangerous. Some things are simply… mindful. The ants of ZANABIA are tall—taller than most garden fences elsewhere in the world. Broad-shouldered, steady-footed, endlessly patient. They move in numbers that feel countless, yet never chaotic. There is no panic in their march,

ANTAR #002

The restaurant was not called a restaurant by the village. It was simply the place where food appeared when people were hungry. Low tables, uneven stools, steam rising from pots that had been simmering longer than memory. ANTAR chose a seat near the edge. Not inside. Not outside. Exactly where

ANTAR #001

The caravan arrived just after dawn, when the village was still deciding whether to wake up fully or pretend it was still night. It did not roll in loudly. It did not announce itself. It simply appeared at the edge of the earth road, where dust meets dew and footsteps

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The ZANABIA Mall

The Ants of ZANABIA

ANTAR #002

ANTAR #001