Creta

Creta is a country in the world of Fullmetal Alchemist, located west of the main country of the series, Amestris.

At the end of the manga and 2009 anime, Edward Elric ventures to Creta and the nations to the west in order to learn and exchange information about alchemy. In the movie Sacred Star of Milos, the Elric Brothers visit an Amestrian occupied city in Creta's territory called Table City.

Government
Creta is a Federal-State composed of several nations reunited under a Union. The Central Government has kept a close watch on the States' affairs, allowing a level of autonomy to each local leaders and keeping them as representatives of the former tribes in the Central Government. This decentralization of power has been a trademark of Creta and has brought many conflicts and problems over the years.

The tribes that compose Creta are culturally diverse and are known to be extremely unfriendly to each other. This animosity has made the Central Government create borders controlled by the Central Government between the tribe's territories in order to keep physical and influential space between the local governments, acting as a shield to avoid civil conflicts. Those conflicts, however, still exist, keeping the Central Government in permanent alert.

History
Creta was founded around the year 900, when the leader of the most influent tribe in the region, called Cretua, decided to unify all neighbor tribes under one government. He implemented a hereditary dynasty of his family, which, eventually, fortified and consolidated the union of those tribes.

Foreign Relations
Creta continually engages Amestris in border disputes, and a great deal of blood has been shed by both sides in their long history as military enemies. In the past, Amestris and Creta fought over the region of Table City, causing great suffering to the native people of that region who were used as cannon fodder by the Cretans and are abused by the Amestrians. At present, the Amestrian city of Pendleton is the center of the latest border war, in which military negligence has caused massive casualties. This is the region where Lt Breda is sent after Fuhrer Bradley reveals his true history as a Homunculus to Colonel Mustang.

Trivia

 * Creta is most likely based on Switzerland. Both countries are relatively small, landlocked, located in the southwest, and formed by a federation of diverse ethnicities.