The Republic of Hu Tao- is a colossal, pleasant nation, remarkable for its daily referendums, unlimited-speed roads, and stringent health and safety legislation. The hard-nosed, devout population of 3.093 billion Hu Tao-ians are prohibited from doing almost everything except voting, which they do timidly and conservatively.

The medium-sized, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Defense, and Administration. The average income tax rate is 50.0%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The Hu Tao-ian economy, worth 221 trillion coffins a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a slick, highly efficient, fairly diversified black market in Arms Manufacturing, Information Technology, Furniture Restoration, and Uranium Mining. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is 71,602 coffins, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Babies are a small but significant export, The Very Hungry Caterpillar has been banned for advocating gluttony, teams of painters are converting road signs from horse lengths to kilometers, and Hu Tao- is increasingly belligerent on the international stage. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Hu Tao-'s national animal is the Boo Tao, which can occasionally be seen sifting through garbage in the nation's cities.

Hu Tao- is ranked 100,437^th in the world and 1^st in Micropolis for Most Cultured, scoring 66 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.