Flinders Prefecture

Flinders Prefecture (/ˈflɪndərz/, abbreviated as FL) is a coastal prefecture in western Enderron. It is bordered by Avalon Prefecture to the northwest, Longshan Prefecture and Kaigan Prefecture to the east, and Cooksland Prefecture to the south. Its capital and most populous city is Flinders City, which is connected to Avalon Beach by the Mackenzie Bridge.

Flinders is Enderron's largest prefecture by area, occupying 13.3 percent of Enderron's territory and an area the size of the US state of New Jersey, but it also has the country's third-lowest population density. The prefecture has 1.2 million habitants, of whom the vast majority (93 percent) live around Palmerston Bay. 81 percent alone live in the Flinders City metropolitan area, leaving the remainder of the prefecture very sparsely populated. Flinders' population has the highest proportion of African Enderronians of any prefecture.

Due to its distance from the Metro Central Region, Flinders remained a relatively isolated and agrarian region well into the 20th century. The Enderronian post-war economic boom allowed Flinders, and in particular Flinders City, to rapidly industrialise and develop an advanced economy based around maritime trade, forestry and manufacturing. A decline in heavy industry has led the prefectural economy to pivot towards winemaking and renewable energy production in the regions, and finance and services in Flinders City, which remains an important rail and road hub for northwestern Enderron. Flinders has the third-highest per capita GDP in the country, after neighbouring Avalon, and Wentworth.

History
TBA

Government
Flinders has a semi-presidential political system, with the Governor of Flinders Prefecture (currently Lauren Carnell of the Social Democratic Party of Enderron) as the head of state, and the Premier of Flinders Prefecture (currently Joshua Lees of the Liberal Party of Enderron) as the head of government. Its unicameral parliament consists of the 52-member Flinders Prefectural Assembly, with elections held every four years, using full preferential voting.

Federal representation
Flinders elects 6 Members of Parliament to the Enderronian Parliament.

Political culture
Flinders is regarded as a conservative prefecture. It has consistently leaned towards the Liberals and their predecessors since the early 20th century, originally due to its rural agrarian nature, and in the modern day due to the relative affluence of its residents. It took the Social Democratic Party until its 1970 landslide to win its first Flinders seat, Kingfisher, and the party was able to win just one of the six electorates in Flinders at the time (excluding electorates in what is now Avalon). As a measure of how conservative Flinders is, it was the only prefecture where the SDP failed to win a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in 1970; as a matter of fact, the SDP has never won a TPP majority in Flinders. The Social Democrats lost Kingfisher at the following election in 1974, and failed to win another seat in Flinders until the 1990 federal election; the 1990–1994 parliament is currently the only one where the SDP held more than one seat in Flinders simultaneously. Since 1994, the only electorate that the SDP has been competitive in is Essendon, which covers most of the Flinders City central business district and the inner suburbs.