The Most Serene Republic of Gymnostan is a gargantuan, socially progressive nation, ruled by Prime Minister Archimedes D'Siracusa with an even hand, and remarkable for its museums and concert halls, smutty television, and punitive income tax rates. The democratic, humorless population of 27.577 billion Gymnostanis enjoy extensive civil rights and enjoy a level of social equality free from the usual accompanying government corruption.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked morass — juggles the competing demands of Environment, Education, and Healthcare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Godiva City. The average income tax rate is 91.2%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The strong Gymnostani economy, worth a remarkable 2,061 trillion verduroes a year, is extremely specialized and solely comprised of the Book Publishing industry. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 74,763 verduroes, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Suburban backyards are seized by the government and turned into national parks, homophobia is off the menu, the sanitised and dull music festivals of Gymnostan are famed for their reasonable volume levels, and soldiers find that home gadgets and power tools are more effective as improvised weapons than the guns they've been issued. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Gymnostan's national animal is the Gymnostani Mastiff, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Naturism.

Gymnostan is ranked 284,155^th in the world and 5,236^th in the South Pacific for Most Cheerful Citizens, with 14.76 Percentage Of Water Glasses Perceived Half-Full.