The People's Republic of Lagazvatni is a titanic, efficient nation, ruled by Hamish Fireman with an iron fist, and renowned for its lack of airports, compulsory vegetarianism, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless, devout population of 21.594 billion Lagazvatnians 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 enormous, corrupt, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Industry, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of London. The average income tax rate is 95.7%.

The frighteningly efficient Lagazvatnian economy, worth a remarkable 4,838 trillion dollars a year, is mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Retail, Gambling, Arms Manufacturing, and Information Technology. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is an amazing 224,051 dollars, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 4.3 times as much as the poorest.

Hamish Fireman has incinerated the international climate treaty in a public coal-burning ceremony, giant no-kill traps baited with Bapst Red Ribbon and vintage bicycles have been popping up in back alleys nationwide, medical experts advise that those claiming to be medical experts are probably fraudsters, and the practice of capital punishment proves divisive. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Lagazvatni's national animal is the elephant, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is Fire.

Lagazvatni is ranked 329,515^th in the world and 4^th in Hearth of Hestia for Nicest Citizens, with 0.17 average smiles per day.