WT: My bad on the whole 'Strait of Melacca' thing. I'm not exactly super well versed in the socio-economics and relations of a lot of the nations of the world. You can blame that on being American, and also not a history buff. I just was keen on making the map look visually interesting and not a one-to-one replica of our own world. Ideally, I would have just loved to make all the geography and nations up entirely with very vague ties to real-world nations, but Zootopia is a world of puns and human stuff animalized, so this map was sort of me meeting that situation in the middle.
As for some nations personified, for my own sake I'm strictly going to limit this to headshots in order to save myself some work, and to cover all the ones you mentioned along with some of my own ideas.
As you guessed it, Greater and Lesser Norwulf would be wolves. However, they'd be somewhat of an opposing force, like the "Inside you there are two wolves" meme. Greater Norwulff would look proud but wise and caring, and Lesser would be the fierce and defensive looking one, a real warrior type, as this represents both countries' stances toward making peace with their neighbors versus trying to conquer them in the past, as Lesser Norwulff had to be brought to heel with Lupa's prophecy by its larger counterpart.
This facet when it came to the twin Norwulves was something I initially wanted to explore with Scottram, what with there being two sheep counterparts that represent their former hatred for Norwulff, and willingness to war, as well as the part that came to make peace with the wolves, and represent that kindness and understanding. In the end, I pretty much merged the two making this very strong warrior ewe willing to defend her country-ram's, but kind and good-natured at heart. Irelamb by contrast holds a harder grudge against the Norwulves and is isolationist...so it gets the full warrior ram treatment. That said, those opposing ideals between the two nations has caused friction that remains to this day.
With Japanda, the red panda actually isn't a native, at least in our world. The reason for the prevalence of Red Panda in Japanda in my lore, and its eventual name choice was due to the Red Panda's being driven out of Panda (China) centuries earlier by larger mammals. Japan also once had its own species of river otter that had gone extinct within the last 200 years. So there's the temptation to make Japanda an otter. But I think I can play with the prospect of the Red Panda being driven out of its home nation leading to the eventual extinction of the native japandese otter-folk when they came to occupy the region. So ultimately I would lean on Red Panda's being the dominant face of Japanda, but perhaps styled like a hun or other Asiatic past invader to represent its takover of the region from its original heirs.
For Swishzerland...or I guess Switzernand, I'm thinking of leading with the Alpine Ibex, a species of mountain goat. A strong, imposing-looking species of goat that I think would well represent Switzerland's native fauna, gives the air of taking defending its nation seriously and keeping neutral and isolated. Germamy, on the other hand, would be represented by the proud and noble Red deer. Elegant, graceful, imposing, Think Louis from Beastars. Naturally, I'm not representing any 'nazi history' in this depiction (at least our world's version), because I cut that bit out of my own Zoot history in favor of a more morally complex rodent purge across Roarope...although I did make Germamy spearhead that effort...so...
For Mawlasia and Bindia, it's actually a struggle...I feel like with the way I coded Vanna and her families ties to Binda, it makes it more tempting to make Bindia's representation as a tiger. But at the end of the day, I feel like the Indian Elephant or Brahin would be a better fit. I'll probably end up siding with the elephant because of my strong vision of a Ganesha-like figure and our own sort of...cultural accretion to elephants holding great wisdom. This would leave Mawlasia to take home the tiger as its own representative.
Lastly, while they weren't brought up in the ask, let's briefly touch on Kingland and The Pridelands. Obviously, both would be represented by lions, but they would have a duality similar to Mufasa and Scar, with Kingland represented by the Mufasa figure, and the more speciest, pred supremacist country of the Pridelands would be represented by the Scar analog. Although the good and evil distinction between the two is more muddied as Kingland shares a divergent past from the old Pridelands, and the ghost of what was formerly Antlerbion and the subjection, as well as the other nations and cultures stomped into extinction by the old Pridelands and their peoples hangs over Kingland's head. Hence they are represented by the ghost of female red deer floating over the Kinglish representative's shoulder, haunting him. For the scar analog, all of his ambition and drive has pushed his nation to a place of high prestige and standing, while also representing the Old Pridelands thirst for conquest. However, he is sickly and brooding because of the souless cruelty his nation employs to separate species by diet and taxonomy, with lions remaining at the top of the heap, with prey at the bottom, and hyena's even lower than that.
Thanks for the ask!
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