The Most Serene Republic of Pontavera is a huge, environmentally stunning nation, remarkable for its museums and concert halls, anti-smoking policies, and frequent executions. The compassionate, devout population of 720 million Pontaverans are highly moralistic and fiercely conservative, in the sense that they tend to believe most things should be outlawed. People who have good jobs and work quietly at them are lauded; others are viewed with suspicion.

The medium-sized government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Law & Order. The average income tax rate is 55.3%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The all-consuming Pontaveran economy, worth 69.1 trillion Veras a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Tourism industry, with significant contributions from Basket Weaving, Information Technology, and Beef-Based Agriculture. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 95,976 Veras, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Online terrorists are automatically assigned adverts for cheap balaclavas, fixing attendance at women's matches is a matter of "when they go low, we go high... funding", hot dogs have been renamed lukewarm pigs, and taxmen are issued platinum-cap designer boots to kick bankrupted Pontaverans when they're down. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Pontavera's national animal is the White Lion, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Pontavera is ranked 74,887^th in the world and 75^th in The Sacred Elite for Nicest Citizens, with 15.9 average smiles per day.