What is "ivalice"

is a fictional universe setting primarily appearing in the Final Fantasy video game series. The world was conceived by Yasumi Matsuno when he joined Square (now Square Enix) in 1995, and has since been expanded upon by several games, with more yet due with the Ivalice Alliance series. Ivalice is described as a complex world with a very long history, and the stories of Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII are said to unfold quite close on the Ivalice map.

Though described often as a world, this was only physically true of Ivalice in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, in which Ivalice was created parallel to the real world. The 'true' Ivalice, as witnessed in the remaining games, describes two distinct locations; a geographical region, and a smaller kingdom, both of which belong to a larger, unnamed world. Generally, however, the term Ivalice is also used to refer to the conceptual setting, rather as one might say the Medieval world of Europe and the Mediterranean.