The Republic of Wilkshire is a gargantuan, cultured nation, ruled by President Paul Williams with an even hand, and remarkable for its museums and concert halls, anti-smoking policies, and keen interest in outer space. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful population of 34.364 billion Wilkshireans are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The enormous, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Environment, Education, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Vasbury. The income tax rate is 100%.

The frighteningly efficient Wilkshirean economy, worth a remarkable 8,586 trillion wilkoes a year, is extremely specialized and mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is an amazing 249,862 wilkoes, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Many in Wilkshire are born in the purple, the nation's atlases tend to go out of date every few weeks, politicians are often found scavenging bins at night to supplement their income, and the comic book series 'President Paul Williams and the Villainous Corporate Cronies' is a best-seller. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Wilkshire's national animal is the cat, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Wilkshire is ranked 171,931^st in the world and 8,861^st in The North Pacific for Largest Mining Sector, scoring -106.3 on the Blue Sky Asbestos Index.