Carpentaria is the third largest continental landmass on the planet Sapphire. It consists of two large subcontinent-sized islands and long archipelagos stretching north and south longitudinally. Most of Carpentaria’s land mass is in the planet’s northern hemisphere. Carpentaria was named for the survey ship Carpentaria, which surveyed the Sapphire system in the 40th Solar Century. Its largest city is New Halifax. It has two regional capitals: Forrestal on the Northern Subcontinent and Bonaventure on the Southern Subcontinent. Curiously, the two cities are less than 200 kilometers apart on either side of the Carpentaria rift that demarcates the northern and southern subcontinents.
Carpentaria is the youngest of Sapphire’s continents and apparently sprang from a fissure in the planet’s crust some 4,000,000 years before the human discovery of the planet. Most of the continent is mountainous. It boasts the majority of the planet’s mineral deposits, including the only readily exploitable sources of titanium, molybdenum, osmium, palladium, and other elements on the planet.
As such, mineral extraction has long been the backbone of the Carpentarian economy; initially during the planet’s early post-colonial period and extending through the re-establishment of spacefaring capabilities, Carpentarian mines supported most of the planet’s industry. The port city of New Halifax was the major site for exporting minerals, some of which required extreme drilling to extract from deep under the continent’s mountain ranges. Later, as asteroid mining became viable, New Halifax remained the primary point of transfer for orbital minerals and chemicals, being a well-protected harbor with a long sea approach. (Atmospheric insertion for heavy mining ships can be a tricky business, as attested by the hundreds of sunken hulks that litter the seabed approach to Halifax Harbor.) Geothermal energy is readily available from the volcanic highlands and powers many of the cities along the western coast.
Agriculture is limited by the mountainous landscape and by the poor quality of soil across most of the continent. At the extreme north, there is an active fisheries industry operating out of small, scenic fishing towns in the northern archipelago.
As of the Solar Year 7300, Carpentaria’s population was approximately 325 million. Over four million people live in New Halifax, making it Sapphire’s largest city. As interstellar trade expanded, New Halifax became a center for trade with other worlds and hosted an expanded population of interstellar immigrants.