The State of Central Elliston is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by the Governor with a fair hand, and remarkable for its absence of drug laws, punitive income tax rates, and stringent health and safety legislation. The hard-nosed, democratic population of 22.343 billion Central Ellistonians love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, socially-minded, outspoken morass — juggles the competing demands of Spirituality, Education, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Capital Heights. The average income tax rate is 74.3%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The large but sluggish Central Ellistonian economy, worth 416 trillion betales a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a slick, highly efficient, highly specialized black market in Cheese Exports, Book Publishing, and Trout Farming. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is 18,650 betales, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Voting is voluntary, Central Elliston has designated Capital Heights as its capital city, and The Governor has just been declared ruler of Central Elliston in an international press conference. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Central Elliston's national animal is the deer, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Central Elliston is ranked 184,450^th in the world and 3^rd in Valletta for Nicest Citizens, with 11.33 average smiles per day.