Elemental Nation

Not pictured: the Country of Heart.

"Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony..."

— Avatar: The Last Airbender's Opening Narration

This is when the process of defining nations in fantasy settings is to have each group be under the domain of one kind of magic. The main appeal to this is, naturally, the easy convenience of being able to define who is from what nation, since they'll have the appropriate elemental affinity to go with it, and the trappings of the culture itself will be clearly delineated by that element as well. This is often paired with tropes like Color-Coded Elements and Single-Palette Town in order to get the full effect. On the downside, this can sometimes result in a Planet of Hats situation on a small scale, since all members of a specific nation must, by definition, fit into the general archetypes of their nation's element.

Taken to extremes, the nation can fall prey to the problem of Poor, Predictable Rock.

Compare Elemental Plane, for when the physical location itself is elemental in nature. Naturally, there is often a lot of overlap.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Naruto:
  • The Five Great Shinobi Nations are the Lands of Wind, Earth, Water, Lightning, and Fire (the last being the homeland of the main cast), all of whom tend to produce ninja with a corresponding elemental affinity. However, it's subverted in that many, if not most, ninjas can use abilities that do not correspond to their respective national affinities; in fact, Naruto's own main affinity is wind, while most of the main cast his age specialize in Non-Elemental abilities and don't use any fire techniques onscreen.
  • The names of the ninja villages play with this a bit; they do correspond with the names of their respective nations (Sand goes with Wind, Stone with Earth, Mist with Water, Cloud with Lightning, and Leaf with Fire), but they're also associated with abilities their respective villages are famous for; for example, the main founder of the Leaf was renowned for his wood-based abilities. The names also are a pretty clear indicator of the kind of environment each village is situated in.
  • Other nations outside of the Five Great Shinobi Nations exist, such as the Land of Steel which is hailed by the samurai.
• Yona of the Dawn: The five tribes are Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, and Sky (the reigning tribe), though it's subverted in that each was supposedly founded by a dragon of that element, and there's very little magic in the world at large.
• The four dimensions of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V each have their own summon method: one focuses exclusively on Fusion summoning, another on Synchro, another on Xyz, and the standard dimension. Played with when it comes to standard; while they have all summon methods (but on a much smaller scale), they later become the ones who pioneer Pendulum Summon, and only people from this dimension are able to use it, due to Reiji manufacturing Pendulum cards.

Films — Animated

• Fire and Ice (1983) involves a war between the nation's of Icepeak and Firekeep. Icepeak is ruled by the Evil Sorcerer, Necron who makes his glaciers gradually spread towards Firekeep. The people of Firekeep aren't magic but have their citadel built around a volcano and can open valves to flood lava over invaders and Necron's glaciers.
• The fire people in Pixar's Elemental come from a volcano-filled nation called Fireland. It's not specified if the other elements come from similar lands.

Literature

• The Banned and the Banished series of books have a variety of different tribes/races associated with different elemental magic forms. Dryads and Earth, Elves and Air, Mountain tribes and Rock.
• An In-Universe folk song in The Grace of Kings describes the nation-states of Dara as such: the martial Cocru and the agricultural Faça are associated with land, the miners of Rima are associated with fire, the naval powers of Amu, Haan, and Gan are associated with water, and Xana, once it mastered air "the empty realm", was able to conquer the other six.
• In the world of the The Sovereign Stone, certain individuals are chosen to be Dominion Lords, who are basically Magic Knights with elemental powers. In the beginning, only the humans had this power, being associated with the element of earth. However, in an act of goodwill the king of the strongest human kingdom uses the titular artifact to share this power to other races inhabiting the world. As a result, the elves received power over wind, the dwarves power over fire and the orcs (here being a race of seafaring nomads) gained power over water.
• The world of Shadow Magic (2016) is split into six countries for six elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Light and Shadow. The main setting is the Shadow kingdom, Gehenna, a nightmarish, macabre land that lives up to its element. The other countries include the Sultanate of Fire, the Kingdom of Lumina (Light,) Herne's Forest (Earth,) the Eagle Mountains (Air,) and the Coral Isles (Water.)

• In Sergey Lukyanenko and Nick Perumov's novel Wrong Time for Dragons, the living part of the single continent of the Middle World is largely split between the lands of the four Elemental clans. While most people living in the clans' territories are ordinary folks, each Elemental clan is a magocracy. The most powerful and experienced mage of each clan is in charge. Even low-ranking mages are automatically afforded more respect than non-magic folks. To be fair, though, there is every indication that the mages are not tyrants, and most genuinely care about their people and lands.
  • The Water Clan is the most powerful, and its lands never experience drought. Their jewel is the city of Hundred Fields full of fountains, canals, water mirrors, and other wonders. Every night, a refreshing light rain washes all the grime and dirt into the river.
  • The Air Clan rules from a mountain peak called the Fang of the Four Winds, although the actual administrative center is the nearby city of Horsk. The winds whisper to the Air mages of things happening all over the world and, sometimes, beyond.
  • The Earth Clan has the most fertile lands and the most profitable mines. Their capital of Feros is not exactly beautiful, though, being a largely industrial city. Like their element, the Earth mages are fairly passive.
  • The Fire Clan has the best combat mages, and their capital is unique in that it lacks any defensive fortifications, relying exclusively on Fire mages for protection. It's also the wealthiest clan, but it has little to do with magic and more to do with trade. Their capital of Oros is almost entirely underground. Specifically, under the former center of power for the overthrown Winged Masters.
• Tsukipro's "Tsukino Empires" series of illustrations and short stories feature the Universal-Adaptor Cast as military officers of empires based on The Four Gods. There's a surprising amount of world building for something that's essentially military uniform fanservice.

Tabletop Games

• Magic: The Gathering does this fairly frequently. Gameplay tribes and in-game factions frequently align to either one of the five colors of Mana in the game and their associated philosophies and magics — White (law, society and light), Blue (science, the mind, water and air), Black (ambition, death and darkness), Red (chaos, emotion and fire) and Green (stability, nature and life) — or various combinations of these, which naturally has heavy influences on how members of these societies think and behave and on what magic they use.
  • Generally speaking, each color’s recurring creature types can be counted upon to stick to the same general philosophy and magic system regardless of what plane and storyline they appear in. For instance, elves are almost always Green-aligned druids who specialize in plant magic, goblins and dragons Red-aligned chaotic anarchists with an affinity for fire magic, and vampires self-centered Black-aligned schemers who practice necromancy.
  • Taken to extremes in the Odyssey block (and the Onslaught block, which took place in the same setting) where the entire map was created simply by superimposing two colour wheels on the spare continent outline they had lying around.
  • Tarkir is ruled by five warrior clans, each modelled after an historical Asian culture, aligned with each colour of mana plus its enemy colours, although the focus is somewhat arbitary and random (for instance, the Mardu Horde, which features White and its enemy colours Black and Red, focuses primarily on Red and not on White).
  • In the past, five dragon broods allied with ally colour pairs also existed on Tarkir, born from elemental storms that took mana from different terrains. They were also elementally aligned: Green-White dragons breathed lasers, White-Blue dragons breathed ice, Blue-Black dragons breathed poison, Black-Red dragons breathed lightning and Red-Green dragons breathed fire. Each brood also took its culture and personality from its colors — the White-Blue dragons were contemplative and enlightened, but arrogant and restrictive, monks and scholars, while the Red-Green dragons were ferocious, simple-minded and ever-hungry beasts.
• Exalted: Played with in regards to the Realm's ruling caste, the Dragon-Blooded. Each of the five Aspects of the Dragon-Blooded embodies, and can manipulate, one of the five elements, although they aren't actually elementals (those are a separate thing). The played with aspect comes up in that they aren't divided politically by which element they embody; their divisions are based purely on politics.
• Duel Masters has five civilizations that each had a distinct elemental theme: Light, Nature, Water, Fire and Darkness (think the colors of Magic: The Gathering with the alignments of Green and Blue switched).

Theme Parks

• Lost Island Theme Park is set on an island divided into five realms home to the scholarly inventors of the Udara Air Society, the easygoing voyagers of the Awa Water Nomads, the forest protectors of the Yuta Earth Tribe, the warriors of the Mura Fire Clan, and the Tamariki Spirit Realm which helps maintain the balance between the four elements.

Toys

• BIONICLE: Mata Nui and Metru Nui are each divided into seven regions, six of which correspond to the elements of Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Stone and Ice (the seventh is a neutral zone in the center). Voya Nui and Bara Magna mix things up a bit: Voya Nui has similar regions but all the inhabitants share a single settlement, while Bara Magna has the regions and color-coding, but none of its peoples have innate elemental powers and most do not have cultural traits unique to their regional tribe (those that do, the Rock and Sand tribes, can attribute their traits to being led by a different race rather than being from a certain region).
• Mixels, thanks to having tribes made out of various elements, each has a region in Mixel Land based on that tribe's element. For example, the Infernites live in a beach-like area with pools of lava and volcanic hot tubs, while the Cragsters live in a mine filled with burrows and rock formations. This even extends to the Mixels without traditional element-based abilites, like the Spikels, who live in a desert with giant sunflower-topped cacti. Finally, to fit in the Nixels and their uncreative thinking, their habitat is a barren and empty black-and-white void.
• Each Slizer has a home based on their element. Depending on the continuity, they either each have their own planet or a large region on a Patchwork Map planet.
• Each one of the Roboriders has a region based on their own element. Lava lives in a volcanically-active region, Frost patrols a frozen region filled with ice-thorns, Onyx fights monsters in a mountainous and rocky land, Swamp cruises through a poisonous marsh, Dust fights against monsters in a desert, and Power has to fight creatures in a city.

Video Games

• Skies of Arcadia uses this for all the defined nations. Though "magic" figures largely as a game mechanic, the cultures are all clearly influenced by the kinds of moonstones to which they have access: Valua has a strong industrial sector powered by electricity, Ixa'taka has lots of fast-growing trees, and Yafutoma has ships that can fly unusually high. Nasr mostly just has sand, but its people manage. The Silver Civilization were a race of nihilists.
• In The Legend of Zelda games, forest residents (Deku, Kokiri, Korok, or Kikwi) have the Forest element; Gorons and Mogma have the Fire element; Zoras and Parella have the Water element. This has more to do with their temple and artifacts than their magical abilities, since spellcasting isn't common in these games. Other races connected to elements (some of which are more abstract than anything) include the Gerudo (desert/spirit/electricity in Breath of the Wild), Yeti (ice/snow), the Wind Tribe/Rito (air/wind), the Sheikah (shadow), Ancient Robots (electricity), and the Twili (twilight).
• The Adept clans of Golden Sun fall into this, particularly the Mars Clan of Prox, the Mercury Clan of Imil, and the (functionally-extinct) Jupiter Clan of (vanished) Anemos. Lemuria would also qualify, being exclusively Mercury, though it doesn't identify as such as readily as the others. There's no sign of where or who the Venus Clan was, and Adepts of all four elements have been known to exist elsewhere. Dark Dawn's massive twist is that Adepts exist outside the known elements... but we're promptly introduced to the Umbra Clan of Tuaparang, so this trope still applies.
• All of the faiths in Lords of Magic, where each faith worships a different type of magic. (Includes the four standard elements, order, chaos, life, and death.)
• Pokémon Conquest features seventeen Kingdoms, each of which is associated with a Pokémon Type and uses that Type almost exclusively. Amongst these are traditional elements like Fire, Water and Rock, but also more "out there" types like Bug, Ghost and Dragon.
• Total Annihilation: Kingdoms the Kingdoms and their monarchs are based on the elements they control. Aramon, a stereotypical medieval kingdom with castles, farms, knights, wizards and courtly intrigue ruled by The Good King Elsin is associated with Earth. Veruna, a Greco-Roman/Scottish archipelago nation with a powerful navy ruled by the Sea Queen Kirenna is associated with Water. Taros, a barren wasteland taking cues from feudal Japan but also Mordor where demons and undead and all manner of other horrors reign, ruled by the evil necromancer king Lokken, is the land of Fire. Finally, Zhon, a wild land populated by badass savages and monstrous beasts where the Huntress Thrish is worshipped as a goddess, is associated with Air. The expansion gives us the nation of Creon, ruled by the Sage Mendalos and associated with steel and technology.
• Ryzom has strong hints of these in each of the four Homin Races you can play as. The Zoraï rely on water to procure their racial Shock and Awe spell and create their magnetism tech, the Matis need a strong connection to the earth to fuel their plant technology as well as their racial poison spell, the Fyros are the most obvious with their love of Playing with Fire, tying into their racial spell, and the floating cities of the Trykers rely heavily on the winds for power.
• My Singing Monsters has an island for each Natural and Magical Element (among others) resting atop the heads of giants. Dawn of Fire reveals that the Natural Islands used to be a single Continent, and the Magical Islands used to be the esoterically-themed Outer Islands.
• Genshin Impact: There are 7 regions that follow each of the seven elements, and are protected by one of the Seven Archons (e.g. Mondstadt is the region of Wind, blessed by the Anemo Archon, Barbatos). The characters who come from each nation, however, do not necessarily wield the designated element (e.g. among the many playable characters from Mondstadt, only three wield Anemo). There are also other regions aside from the seven (which may or may not follow any elemental motif), such as Khaenri'ah.
• Rivals of Aether has four nations based on the classical elements. Each element has one representative, plus two other characters representing some "sub-element":
  • The Firelands have Zetterburn (Fire), Forsburn (Smoke), and Clairen (Plasma).
  • Water Town has Orcane (Water), Eltalus (Ice), and Ranno (Poison).
  • The Air Nation has Wrastor (Wind), Absa (Lightning), and Elliana (Steam).
  • The Aetherian Forest has Kragg (Stone), Maypul, and Sylvanos (Plant life for the latter two, though moreso the forest itself for Sylvanos).
  • The four Workshop characters set to be added to the official roster also have sub-elemental powers: Mollo's is fire-based (explosives), Hodan's is water-based (warm water), Pomme's is air-based (music/sound) and Olympia's is earth-based (amethyst).

Webcomics

• Realta: Variation — the four kingdoms are organized by the elemental affiliation of their Zodiac signs. Cúlra is home to the Earth signs (Taurus, Capricorn, Virgo).
• In Yokoka's Quest, each character (aside from Grace, due to coming from Earth) has allegiance to a particular elemental Clan.

Web Original

• Explicitly averted by five powers of Lambda, mostly so it doesn't end up looking like Avatar with Magical Girls, and also to avoid Poor, Predictable Rock.

Western Animation

• Besides many other kingdoms in Adventure Time, the Ice Kingdom, the Fire Kingdom, the Candy Kingdom, the Slime Kingdom and the Lumpy Space Kingdom feature locations and residents mostly made of the Bizarro Elements they're named after.
• The Avatar franchise:
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender features this prominently. Elemental "bending" is limited to characters from the appropriately named nation that engages in use of that element. Moreover, the nations themselves are easily defined by those elements. The Air Nomads, when they were still around, largely lived in high-up temples to which only they could glide. The Water Tribe lives at the poles (where they are naturally surrounded by water), except for one offshoot that lives at a swamp (which is mostly surrounded by water). The Fire Nation is mostly close to the equator and has an inordinately large number of active volcanoes in its territory. The Earth Kingdom, in addition to being a massive landmass, is very rocky and mountainous with lots of caves.
  • It's played with by the time The Legend of Korra comes along. Due to the cultural blending caused by having the Fire Nation colonize part of the Earth Kingdom for a hundred years, plus waves of subsequent immigration, these former Fire Nation colonies have developed into a fifth nation called the United Republic that's a mix of people from the Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, and Water Tribes, as well as the home of the world's only living airbenders. The old nations are still largely ethnically (and elementally) homogeneous, however.
• The elves from The Dragon Prince have clans for each Primal Source of Magic (Moon, Sun, Sky, Ocean, Earth, Star), each one giving the elf a natural ability. For example, Moonshadow Elves can become Visibly Invisible at night, while Sunfire Elves have a Super Mode and a Healing Mode.
• A Sci-Fi example is Shadow Raiders. The Cluster's solar system has five planets; Rock, Fire, Ice, Bone and Water, with their inhabitants looking a lot like the element describing the planet (with the exception of the people of Bone, who look like reptiles).

Other

• This map attributes an element to the seven continents of the world:
  • Africa is affiliated with Earth, due to its diverse mineralogy and status as the origin point of humankind.
  • Europe is affiliated with Metal, due to it being the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.
  • Asia is affiliated with Water, due to its great size and the element's prominence in its cultures.
  • North America is affiliated with Air, due to The Old North Wind and because this continent has the most tornadoes.
  • South America is affiliated with Wood, due to its many dense rainforests.
  • Oceania is affiliated with Fire, due to its harsh climate and bushfires, and the many Pacific islands formed from volcanic activity.
  • Antarctica is affiliated with Ice, due to obvious reasons.
• Russia is often associated with Ice, with a famously deadly winter for the unprepared, and stereotypical clothing that emphasizes warmth. As such, Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Russia in fiction will likely be also affiliated with Ice.

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