List of species of the Culture setting

Various fictional societies are depicted in the Culture series of Iain M. Banks.

The Culture series is set in the Milky Way. The galaxy is richly populated by thousands of spacefaring species and even more without any well-developed space travel. Species and civilizations differ wildly in their physique and habitats, their mindset and culture, their technical development, age, size and power. As an example for the differences in scale, the Empire of Azad (see below) is a spacefaring civilization that controls several thousand stars, yet from the perspective of the larger and more advanced Culture this empire is a small and semi-barbarous backwater society, insignificant and unknown to the average Culture citizen.

The novels cover a time span of approximately 1,500 years, with occasional references to or depictions of events long before or long after the main timeline. As such the status of civilizations and the universe as a whole progresses or changes in the course of the series. The novels contain several terms and systems intended to provide a broad categorization of the civilizations:

Except for the Culture, most civilizations only ever occur in one novel. As the categorization systems themselves were introduced at different points in the series, there are many civilizations whose positions within some or all of the various categorization systems is not known.

Socionym

Morphology

Pressure

Comments

Remarks

(normative)

(standard)

(superhydrous)

Evolved

Uninvolved

(high)

(humid)

Evolved

High Involved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

Early Involved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Involved

(militaristic)

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

Uninvolved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

High Involved

(anarchist)
(utopian)

(Incorporeal)

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

Involved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

High Involved

(normative)

(standard)

(wet)

Evolved

...
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