The People's Republic of Shovell is a huge, environmentally stunning nation, remarkable for its compulsory military service, keen interest in outer space, and restrictive gun laws. The compassionate population of 576 million Shovellians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The large, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Welfare. The average income tax rate is 70.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The powerhouse Shovellian economy, worth 54.6 trillion dollars a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is fairly diversified, is led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Tourism, Book Publishing, and Arms Manufacturing. Average income is 94,820 dollars, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Leader always arrives fashionably late and smelling of mushrooms, the pursuit of wanted criminals ends at the entrance of the pay'n'spray garage as police refuse to enter any private property, the nation's generous tax credits have brought all the film studios to the yard, and many whiskies taste suspiciously like automobile radiators. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Shovell's national animal is the ant, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Shovell is ranked 30,048^th in the world and 139^th in Conch Kingdom for Healthiest Citizens, with 8.22 bananas ingested per day.