Ruritania

Ruritania is a fictional country, originally located in Central Europe as a setting for a trilogy of novels by Anthony Hope, beginning with The Prisoner of Zenda (1894). Nowadays, the term connotes a quaint minor European country or is used as a placeholder name for an unspecified country in academic discussions. The first known use of the demonym Ruritanian was in 1896.

Hope's setting lent its name to a literary genre involving fictional countries, which is known as Ruritanian romance.