The United Socialist States of Span is a behemoth, efficient nation, ruled by M Shobacus Maz with a fair hand, and remarkable for its smutty television, compulsory vegetarianism, and hatred of cheese. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful, devout population of 50.96 billion Spanners 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 Education, Environment, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Maz. The average income tax rate is 97.0%.

The frighteningly efficient Spanner economy, worth an astonishing 15,785 trillion spannies a year, is highly specialized and led by the Book Publishing industry, with major contributions from Tourism and Information Technology. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an amazing 309,757 spannies, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Every week is blindness awareness week, armed security details escort librarians to their homes, lawyers turn down litigation cases and corporate work in order to focus on lucrative public defence work, and schools have extensive counseling programs for troubled students. Crime is totally unknown. Span's national animal is the donkey, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Span is ranked 980^th in the world and 147^th in The North Pacific for Most Influential, scoring 95,308 on the Soft Power Disbursement Rating.