FMA is set in an Industrial Revolution based timeline. The year Ed and Al burn down their childhood home in Resembool is 1911.

Edward Elric (エドワード・エルリック, Edowādo Erurikku), given the title Fullmetal Alchemist (鋼の錬金術師, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) is the youngest State Alchemist in the history of the organization having gained his admittance at the age of 12….Edward Elric.

VIZ on Twitter: “There are 18 total Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition books.… “

Fullmetal Alchemist takes place in the fictional country of Amestris (アメストリス, Amesutorisu). In this world, alchemy is one of the most-practiced sciences; Alchemists who work for the government are known as State Alchemists (国家錬金術師, Kokka Renkinjutsushi) and are automatically given the rank of Major in the military.

Fullmetal Alchemist is actually set in Amestris, a fictional country that is loosely based on real-world Germany, with influences from many other European countries and cultures.

As a result, there is a lot of cross-cultural sharing, which is why you see a lot of German outside of just anime as well (for example, the Japanese word for part-time job (アルバイト) is based off the German word for work (arbeit).

Moreover, alchemy was, in fact, illegal in many European countries from the Middle Ages down to the early modern period. This is because rulers were afraid of undermining the gold standard, of corrupting the gold supply in Europe. So alchemists adapted the way they wrote to be more secretive.

Indian alchemists and Chinese alchemists made contributions to Eastern varieties of the art. Alchemy is still practiced today by a few, and alchemist characters still appear in recent fictional works and video games. Many alchemists are known from the thousands of surviving alchemical manuscripts and books.

The alchemists, obsessed with secrecy, deliberately described their experiments in metaphorical terms laden with obscure references to mythology and history.