The Kingdom of Vandgaard is a tiny, genial nation, remarkable for its parental licensing program, restrictive gun laws, and devotion to social welfare. The compassionate, hard-working, cynical population of 7 million Vandgaardics 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 medium-sized, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Education, Welfare, and Law & Order. The average income tax rate is 34.0%.

The strong Vandgaardian economy, worth 386 billion Vamøs a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Door-to-door Insurance Sales industry, with major contributions from Basket Weaving, Trout Farming, and Retail. Average income is 55,255 Vamøs, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 4.2 times as much as the poorest.

Greenhouses are regularly raided by the police, orthopaedics patients often have a bounce in their step, parents who fail mandatory parenting classes risk having their children taken away, and protesters are up in arms over new nuclear power stations. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Vandgaard's national animal is the Penguins, which can occasionally be seen avoiding garbage in the nation's murky oceans.

Vandgaard is ranked 253,298^th in the world and 237^th in Aesica for Most Cultured, scoring 63 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.