The Principality of Grysden is a huge, efficient nation, remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape, flagrant waste-dumping, and spontaneously combusting cars. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic population of 877 million Grysdenians are free to succeed or fail in life on their own merits; the successful tend to enjoy an opulent (but moralistic) lifestyle, while the failures can be seen crowding out most jails.

The tiny, moralistic government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Law & Order, and Defense. The average income tax rate is 8.6%.

The very strong Grysdenian economy, worth 52.3 trillion roples a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Gambling industry, with major contributions from Information Technology, Arms Manufacturing, and Uranium Mining. Average income is 59,673 roples, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 3.9 times as much as the poorest.

The nation is ravaged by daily union strikes, citizens are enjoying a recent large cut in taxes, cops in Grysden City spend much of their time napping on a park bench next to Embassy Row, and corrupt industrial practices are spreading like a plague. Crime is moderate, with the police force struggling against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Grysden's national animal is the Eagle, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to toxic air pollution.

Grysden is ranked 218,354^th in the world and 423^rd in Starlight for Most Cultured, scoring 64 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.