The Great of Hansa Federation is a colossal, efficient nation, ruled by Big Francis with an iron fist, and notable for its pith helmet sales, ubiquitous missile silos, and smutty television. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless, devout population of 7.074 billion Hansans are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The medium-sized, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Industry, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of New Lubeck. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 52.8%.

The frighteningly efficient Hansa Federationian economy, worth a remarkable 1,063 trillion Baldwin Bucks a year, is quite specialized and mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Retail, Uranium Mining, Furniture Restoration, and Woodchip Exports. Average income is an impressive 150,305 Baldwin Bucks, with the richest citizens earning 6.8 times as much as the poorest.

Aristocratic family trees are beginning to resemble tumbleweeds, door-to-door salesmen are frequently beaten up by 'vigilantes', billions of Baldwin Bucks are being blown on orbital weapons development, and spies caught red-handed are served cocktails on their first-class flights home. Crime is all-pervasive, possibly because it is difficult to make it through a day without breaking one of the country's many regulations. Hansa Federation's national animal is the Printer, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is Printerism.

Hansa Federation is ranked 30,582^nd in the world and 28^th in Lands End for Most Patriotic, with 38.07 flags saluted per person per day.