Lilliput and Blefuscu are two fictional island nations that appear in the first part of the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. The two islands are neighbors in the South Indian Ocean, separated by a channel eight hundred yards wide. Both are inhabited by tiny people who are about one-twelfth the height of ordinary human beings. Both kingdoms are empires, i.e. realms ruled by a self-styled emperor. The capital of Lilliput is Mildendo...
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Lilliput and Blefuscu are two fictional island nations that appear in the first part of the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. The two islands are neighbors in the South Indian Ocean, separated by a channel eight hundred yards wide. Both are inhabited by tiny people who are about one-twelfth the height of ordinary human beings. Both kingdoms are empires, i.e. realms ruled by a self-styled emperor. The capital of Lilliput is Mildendo.
Swift gives the location of Lilliput and Blefuscu as Latitude 30°2′S, to the northwest of Van Diemen's Land. Because this area is actually occupied by Australia, and on the basis of other textual evidence, some have concluded that Swift intended to place Lilliput in the Pacific Ocean, to the northeast, not northwest, of Van Diemen's Land.
Lilliput is said to extend 5,000 blustrugs, or twelve miles in circumference. Blefuscu is located northeast of Lilliput, across an 800-yard channel. The only cities mentioned by Swift are Mildendo, the...
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