The Landgraviate of Bodanwald is a titanic, efficient nation, ruled by Eberwin Von Bressen with an iron fist, and notable for its zero percent divorce rate, smutty television, and complete lack of public education. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, devout population of 11.532 billion Bodanwalders 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 relatively small, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Industry, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Kieselberg. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 8.6%.

The all-consuming Bodanwalder economy, worth 956 trillion Marks a year, is fairly diversified and dominated by the Trout Farming industry, with significant contributions from Cheese Exports, Beef-Based Agriculture, and Tourism. Average income is 82,902 Marks, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 297,582 per year while the poor average 16,549, a ratio of 18.0 to 1.

What citizens give with one hand they take away with the other, fruit market traders let their stock spoil rather than reduce their prices at the day's end, the hardest thing for a mining operation to dig through is government red tape, and programmes of questionable content are shown at peak-hours. Crime is a serious problem, with the police force struggling against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Bodanwald's national animal is the Great cormorant, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Catholicism.

Bodanwald is ranked 316,632^nd in the world and 1^st in Pelagus for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring -75.07 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.