Zanarkand

Zanarkand is one of the cities in Final Fantasy X. It was a huge machina city created thousands of years before the start of the game. The city was much bigger and more advanced than any of the other cities at the time, which eventually sparked rivalry from Bevelle. Although Zanarkand's technology was superior overall, they had very little military technology, instead relying on their summoners to protect them. Summoners were people who had learnt the art of summoning Aeons, divine creatures.

The main entertainment in Zanarkand is blitzball, a sport played in a sphere pool filled with water. The object of the game is to score goals by throwing the ball into your opponent's goal. Thousands of people flock to the stadium to see blitzball games which are common occurrences in Zanarkand.

One thousand years before the start of the game, Bevelle wanted to have control of Zanarkand's advanced machina. The Bevellian government declared war on Zanarkand, and the two cities' forces met on the Calm Lands, a grassy plain below Mt Gagazet. The result was that Zanarkand lost and Bevelle prepared for an invasion. They invaded the city, and Zanarkand's summoners were no match for Bevelle's machina. The leader of Zanarkand, Yu Yevon, refused to surrender, so Bevelle were on the brink of unleashing their deadly machina weapon, Vegnagun. But before they had a chance to, Yu Yevon ordered those who had escaped destruction at the hands of Bevelle to give up their lives and become Fayths. He took the life-force from the rest of the people and formed it into an armor called Sin, which he used to decimate Bevelle's army, but he destroyed Zanarkand in the process. He then ordered the Fayths to summon a dream of the city, a Zanarkand which never sleeps. It was this Zanarkand that Tidus grew up in.

One thousand years later, Sin destroys the dream Zanarkand, transporting Tidus to the modern world of Spira. He meets a summoner, Yuna, and becomes her guardian...