The Empire of Scienland is a huge, environmentally stunning nation, renowned for its compulsory military service, irreverence towards religion, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic population of 237 million Scienlandish enjoy a sensible mix of personal and economic freedoms, while the political process is open and the people's right to vote held sacrosanct.

The relatively small government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Defense, and Education. The average income tax rate is 17.3%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The Scienlandian economy, worth 16.7 trillion Science-a dollars a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Trout Farming industry, with major contributions from Basket Weaving, Door-to-door Insurance Sales, and Information Technology. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 70,533 Science-a dollars, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 3.0 times as much as the poorest.

Remote-control hang-gliding scarecrows patrol the skies to keep songbirds from leaving the nation's borders, bemused citizens are encouraged to sing foreign-language hymns of religions they have never heard of, employers are keenest on employees who lack family values, and meetings involving club finances are frequently broken up by men in black suits. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Scienland's national animal is the Bananopus chameleanus, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Scienland is ranked 55,066^th in the world and 1^st in The Scienish commonwealth for Nicest Citizens, with 16.29 average smiles per day.