The Union of Poldania is a gargantuan, cultured nation, ruled by President Robert Cesare with a fair hand, and remarkable for its smutty television, daily referendums, and devotion to social welfare. The compassionate, democratic population of 26.31 billion Poldanians are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The enormous government juggles the competing demands of Education, Industry, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Verdona. The average income tax rate is 82.9%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Poldanian economy, worth a remarkable 2,932 trillion marks a year, is quite specialized and mostly made up of the Book Publishing industry, with significant contributions from Soda Sales, Tourism, and Cheese Exports. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an impressive 111,466 marks, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Postmen have been arrested in job lots for selling junk mail as home insulation, the nightly news reports prosaically on the government blindly throwing money at despotic kidnappers, Astraeanism has been named as Poldania's national religion, and in a fit of passion President Robert Cesare has shredded thirty years' worth of petitions. Crime is totally unknown. Poldania's national animal is the wolf, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is Astraeanism.

Poldania is ranked 80,085^th in the world and 1^st in Noctur for Lowest Crime Rates, with 68.53 law-abiding acts per hour.