The Federal Commonwealth of Polarea is a titanic, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by First Minister Elysia Lynne with a fair hand, and renowned for its anti-smoking policies, irreverence towards religion, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful population of 21.664 billion Polareans are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The enormous, liberal, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Göteborg. The income tax rate is 100%.

The frighteningly efficient Polarean economy, worth a remarkable 5,085 trillion Polar Crowns a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is highly specialized, is mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Tourism and Book Publishing. Average income is an amazing 234,765 Polar Crowns, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Criminals rejoice in the streets as the entire police force is sent away on a training retreat, the best way to be heard in politics is to speak softly and carry a big comedy prop, young children are learning advanced physics to scientifically disprove the existence of Santa Claus, and if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it... Polarean satellites can detect it. Crime is totally unknown. Polarea's national animal is the Reindeer, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Polarea is ranked 1,539^th in the world and 1^st in Arctic for Smartest Citizens, with 219.28 quips per hour.