The Écrivain of Gustave Flaubert is a gargantuan, efficient nation, ruled by Charles Bovary with an iron fist, and notable for its free-roaming dinosaurs, frequent executions, and parental licensing program. The compassionate, cynical, humorless, devout population of 19.976 billion French Realists 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, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Yonville-l'Abbaye. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 40.0%.

The frighteningly efficient French Realist economy, worth a remarkable 3,195 trillion Salammbôs a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Arms Manufacturing industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology, Tourism, and Beef-Based Agriculture. Black market activity is rampant. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an impressive 159,944 Salammbôs, with the richest citizens earning 6.3 times as much as the poorest.

Kids looking for shark teeth have become ancient history, smoking is banned in public areas, cowboys often wear wolfskin jackets to the saloon, and Calvinball players are lost for days as they wander the vast halls of their new academies. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Gustave Flaubert's national animal is the club foot, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is the mediocrity of daily life.

Gustave Flaubert is ranked 9,427^th in the world and 3^rd in Seinfeld for Healthiest Citizens, with 15.17 bananas ingested per day.