The Map Projection of Mercator Projection is a massive, socially progressive nation, remarkable for its unlimited-speed roads, national health service, and absence of drug laws. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic population of 1.758 billion Mercator Projectionians enjoy some of the most opulent lifestyles in the region, unless they are unemployed or working-class, in which case they are variously starving to death or crippled by easily preventable diseases.

The relatively small, liberal, pro-business government juggles the competing demands of Healthcare, Law & Order, and Welfare. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 13.7%.

The thriving Mercator Projectionian economy, worth 124 trillion dollars a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Gambling industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing, Uranium Mining, and Woodchip Exports. Average income is 70,678 dollars, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 254,727 per year while the poor average 14,021, a ratio of 18.2 to 1.

Stony-faced prosecutors play loud gangster rap music during court proceedings, the roads are notorious throughout the region for their peril, the nation's faithful often say there is a higher power watching over them, and scavengers with burlap sacks and shovels skulk around graveyards. Crime is moderate. Mercator Projection's national animal is the wandering albatross, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to toxic air pollution.

Mercator Projection is ranked 205,422^nd in the world and 7^th in King Edward Point for Most Cultured, scoring 64 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.