Earthsea - People and Cultures

People and Cultures

The cultures of Earthsea are not direct analogues of those of our world, but are literate non-industrial civilizations. Technologically, Earthsea is an early Iron Age society, with bronze used in places where iron is scarce. Ged's father is a bronze-smith. Weapons also include the use of wood and other hard but easily crafted metals.

Like the peoples of the Pacific islands or the Mediterranean basin, they have a way of life based on contact with the sea. However, on many of the larger islands like Havnor, Semel, and Way, people can live a totally inland life. The areas of earth most closely resembling the world of Earthsea are the Indonesian and Phillippine archipelagos, although Earthsea is nowhere near a large continent. The largest island, Havnor, at approximately 380 miles across is about the size of Great Britain.

The overall climate of Earthsea is temperate, comparable to the mid-latitudes (over a distance of about 1800 miles) of the Northern hemisphere. There is a yearly transition from warm summers to cold and snowy winters, especially in northern islands like Gont and Osskil. In the southern regions of Earthsea it can be much warmer.

Earthsea, with the exception of the Kargad lands, is a literate society using a writing system called the "Hardic runes." The name suggests similarity to the Germanic runes, but there are supposed to be hundreds of runes in use (in A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged learns to read and write "The Six Hundred Runes of Hardic"), suggesting a logographic system similar to Chinese.