The Community of Shapeville is a huge, genial nation, notable for its museums and concert halls, multi-spousal wedding ceremonies, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic population of 852 million Shapevilleans 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 medium-sized, liberal, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Education, and Welfare. The average income tax rate is 42.2%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The Shapevillean economy, worth 52.0 trillion vertexes a year, is quite specialized and led by the Tourism industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology, Beef-Based Agriculture, and Book Publishing. Black market activity is notable. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 61,089 vertexes, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Commemorative mugs remembering last year's Black Friday Crockery Riots are a best seller this year, the nation's forests are full of treasure hunters in military-grade survival gear, Leader's office has a newly installed Max-Man arcade game programmed by a 5th-grader, and voting is voluntary. Crime, especially youth-related, is moderate, perhaps because of the country's complete lack of prisons. Shapeville's national animal is the face, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Shapeville is ranked 230,223^rd in the world and 3,601^st in The North Pacific for Largest Pizza Delivery Sector, scoring -6.33 on the Pepperoni Propulsion Productivity Index.