The Empire of Chuou is a very large, genial nation, remarkable for its museums and concert halls, irreverence towards religion, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate population of 488 million Chuouans, 426 million of whom are zombies, are highly moralistic and fiercely conservative, in the sense that they tend to believe most things should be outlawed. People who have good jobs and work quietly at them are lauded; others are viewed with suspicion.

The medium-sized government juggles the competing demands of Education, Welfare, and Healthcare. The average income tax rate is 51.6%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The strong Chuouan economy, worth 41.8 trillion nakas a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Basket Weaving, Trout Farming, and Beef-Based Agriculture. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 80,113 nakas, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

One does not simply walk into the tundra, scientific journals publish third-graders' school essays, burial ceremonies have become as routinised as tax forms, and facial disfigurement is a leading cause of supervillainy. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Chuou's national animal is the pigeon, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Chuou is ranked 179,666^th in the world and 2^nd in Feather flying for Largest Arms Manufacturing Sector, scoring 2,353 on the Charon Conveyancy Index.