The District of VanWarner is a gargantuan, efficient nation, ruled by the Governor with an iron fist, and renowned for its compulsory military service and complete absence of social welfare. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 40.402 billion VanWarnerians are rabid consumers, partly through choice and partly because the government tells them to and dissenters tend to vanish from their homes at night.

The relatively small, well-organized government is dominated by the Department of Law & Order, although Education and Industry are also considered important, while Social Policy and Spirituality are ignored. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Capital Heights. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 9.8%.

The thriving VanWarnerian economy, worth a remarkable 1,681 trillion betales a year, is led by the Trout Farming industry, with major contributions from Basket Weaving, Book Publishing, and Information Technology. Average income is 41,617 betales, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 123,742 per year while the poor average 10,973, a ratio of 11.3 to 1.

The latest Harry Potter book is a bestseller, VanWarner has designated Capital Heights as its capital city, a major religion has been named as VanWarner's national religion, and the Governor has just been declared ruler of VanWarner in an international press conference. Crime is moderate. VanWarner's national animal is the deer, which can occasionally be seen sifting through garbage in the nation's cities.

VanWarner is ranked 106,082^nd in the world and 1^st in VanWarner for Most Developed, scoring 60.1 on the Human Development Index.