The Armed Republic of Salatoa is a very large, genial nation, notable for its state-planned economy, irreverence towards religion, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate population of 310 million Salatoans enjoy extensive civil rights and enjoy a level of social equality free from the usual accompanying government corruption.

The medium-sized, liberal, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Education, and Administration. The average income tax rate is 40.5%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but underdeveloped Salatoan economy, worth 10.6 trillion Shells a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector is led by the Beef-Based Agriculture industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing, Pizza Delivery, and Uranium Mining. Average income is 34,040 Shells, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

When flight control tells pilots to alter course the usual reply is "No, YOU move!", royalist is the most offensive slur in the Salatoan language, it turns out that you actually can put a price on intangible cultural heritage, and people with hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia faint upon diagnosis. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Salatoa's national animal is the Badger, which is also the nation's favorite main course.

Salatoa is ranked 285,814^th in the world and 168^th in The League for Largest Black Market, with 52.0 billion Standard Monetary Units.