Circle Sea - Definition and Overview

The Circle Sea is a fictional sea which features in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels.

An almost landlocked sea approximately halfway between the Hub and the Rim, opening at the Turnwise side into the Rim Ocean. Its principal trading ports are Ankh-Morpork, on the Sto Plains coast, and Al Khali and Ephebe on the Rimwards side. Discworld civilization, which can broadly be defined as those countries that have invented the fork as well as the knife, is found around the Circle Sea's historic coasts.

Many nations surrounding the circle sea are similar to nations around the Mediterranean, for instance:

• Ankh Morpork - Rome (a historical seat of empire, which would have declined were it not the seat of an important institution), also the Italian trading cities Venice, Pisa and Genoa
• Ephebe - Ancient Greece, more particulaly a Greek City State in the republican tradition
• Djelibeybi - Ancient Eygpt
• Klatch - Medieval Arabic states, the Ottoman Empire
• Omnia - Geographicaly similar to Algeria or Libya, politicaly similar to Medieval Spain during the time of the Spanish inquisition
• Tsort - Troy (On the discworld there have been Tsortian wars, triggered by a character named 'Helen of Tsort')

From the novels Small Gods and Pyramids the location of certain nations surrounding the circle sea can be determined; Djelibeybi seperates Klatch and Ephebe, and Ephebe borders (an undetermined border in uninhabitable desert) Omnia.