Originally Posted by
Jeeqbit
It looks to me like a lot of ARR city states and many of the surrounding areas are actually one giant zone split on purpose to separate resources. We could make the same argument with Upper La Noscea and Outer La Noscea.
To merge them they would probably have to go back and modify thousands of npcs and quests that take place in the city states so that they happen in the unified area and a lot of other information like that would have to be combined as well. So it's not very likely.
The areas are bigger now, but when the game released it supported PS3 and lower specs. It might still be worth being this way because ARR are the first areas new players set foot in and therefore can be the most busy.