The Budding Forest of Grace Wellesley Thayer is a massive, socially progressive nation, ruled by Welly Thayer with an iron fist, and renowned for its irreverence towards religion, absence of drug laws, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 1.91 billion Thayerians enjoy great individual freedoms in everything except elections, which, where they exist at all, are populist shams for a dictatorship government that has no intention of ever giving up power.

The relatively small, liberal, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Education, Industry, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 12.1%.

The frighteningly efficient Thayerian economy, worth 198 trillion wellies a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Retail, Soda Sales, and Uranium Mining. Average income is an impressive 104,076 wellies, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 306,728 per year while the poor average 27,788, a ratio of 11.0 to 1.

Only the richest get to see out of their windows, the regional delicacy of chocolate bombes is deadlier than an unexploded bomb, carefully-staged grief is displayed by Welly Thayer after national disasters, and journalists often nap through tedious police press briefings. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Grace Wellesley Thayer's national animal is the elk, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Thayerian deference.

Grace Wellesley Thayer is ranked 137,143^rd in the world and 2,776^th in the South Pacific for Highest Food Quality, scoring 17.02 on the Meeshlin-Starr Index.