The Confederacy of Columbardy is a very large, environmentally stunning nation, remarkable for its multi-spousal wedding ceremonies, compulsory military service, and irreverence towards religion. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic population of 228 million Columbards are effectively ruled by a group of massive corporations, who run for political office and provide their well-off citizens with world-class goods and services. Their poorer citizens, however, are mostly starving to death while being urged to go out and get real jobs. The populace has reasonably extensive civil rights, although these are mostly aimed at allowing them to buy whatever they like.

The relatively small government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Education, and Industry. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 9.3%.

The powerhouse Columbard economy, worth 19.1 trillion dollars a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Retail industry, with major contributions from Trout Farming, Information Technology, and Gambling. Average income is 83,703 dollars, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 243,821 per year while the poor average 22,718, a ratio of 10.7 to 1.

The most notorious criminals are given the Consequences of Your Actions Award, expensive lawyers are hired to defend citizens in court for public urination charges against their pets, descriptions of properties as "a stone's throw from the city centre" require a trebuchet to be true, and undergrads find their professors' mushroom experiments less psychedelic than expected. Crime, especially youth-related, is well under control. Columbardy's national animal is the turkey, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Columbardy is ranked 62,444^th in the world and 1,241^st in The North Pacific for Smartest Citizens, with 40.43 quips per hour.