The Ever Regressing Backwater of Prosophobia is a gargantuan, orderly nation, ruled by The Mysterious Unknown with an iron fist, and notable for its triple-decker prams, parental licensing program, and enforced nudity. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless, devout population of 15.474 billion Prosophobes are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized morass — is solely concerned with Spirituality. The average income tax rate is 35.1%.

The sizeable but stagnant Prosophobian economy, worth 58.4 trillion Meals a year, is driven almost entirely by government activity, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is an enormous, deeply entrenched, extremely specialized black market in Furniture Restoration. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. State-owned companies are the norm. Average income is 3,775 Meals, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 4.0 times as much as the poorest.

Children who believe in the tooth fairy are frequently shipped off to Bigtopia, punk rockers smash it up and then clean it up, citizens are told that foreigners are hungry ghosts who eat the flesh of the overly curious, and the term "Native Prosophobe" has been redefined as anyone with the same skin color as the majority. Crime, especially youth-related, is so common that it is unusual to encounter someone following the law, perhaps because of the country's complete lack of prisons. Prosophobia's national animal is the Flea, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is Darkness.

Prosophobia is ranked 259,968^th in the world and 29^th in Eladen for Healthiest Citizens, with 0.28 bananas ingested per day.