The Department of Ardennes is a gargantuan, safe nation, ruled by Pascal Joly with a fair hand, and remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape and compulsory military service. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic, devout population of 12.654 billion Ardennaises are known throughout the region for their efficiency and work ethic, as well as their general suspicion of leisure.

The relatively small government juggles the competing demands of Spirituality, Defense, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Charleville-Mézières. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 17.3%.

The thriving Ardennais economy, worth 903 trillion francs a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Basket Weaving industry, with significant contributions from Gambling, Door-to-door Insurance Sales, and Information Technology. Average income is 71,364 francs, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 251,276 per year while the poor average 14,675, a ratio of 17.1 to 1.

Military chiefs are predicting extra funding in this year's budget, it is now illegal for teens to view any sites except Club Kitten and My Little Donkey, road signs are getting harder to read under layers of knitted woolen cardigans, and the nation is regarded as a paragon of democracy. Crime, especially youth-related, is almost non-existent, despite the fact that it is difficult to make it through a day without breaking one of the country's many laws. Ardennes's national animal is the beaver, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is Roman Catholicism.

Ardennes is ranked 240,456^th in the world and 68^th in Department Store for Most Corrupt Governments, with 0.79 kickbacks per hour.