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EntityQ644291· pop 13· linked from 119 articles

Also known as Kingdom of Ruritania

Ruritania is a fictional country, originally located in Central Europe as a setting for a trilogy of novels by Anthony Hope, beginning with The Prisoner of Zenda (1894). Nowadays, the term connotes a quaint minor European country or is used as a placeholder name for an unspecified country in academic discussions. The first known use of the demonym Ruritanian was in 1896.

~5 min read

Encyclopedic overview

6 sections
Contents
  • Fictional country
  • Central and southeastern Europe
  • Footnotes
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

Ruritania is a fictional country, originally located in Central Europe as a setting for a trilogy of novels by Anthony Hope, beginning with The Prisoner of Zenda (1894). Nowadays, the term connotes a quaint minor European country or is used as a placeholder name for an unspecified country in academic discussions. The first known use of the demonym Ruritanian was in 1896.

Hope's setting lent its name to a literary genre involving fictional countries, which is known as Ruritanian romance.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Ruritania” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.