Location: Avalon

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Lost Island of Shining Ys is a massive, socially progressive nation, ruled by Queen Dahut with a fair hand, and notable for its complete lack of prisons. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 2.092 billion love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, socially-minded government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Education, Social Equality, and the Environment. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Ys. The average income tax rate is 97%. The private sector is almost wholly made up of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, although the government is looking at stamping this out.

A weakened police force struggles to maintain law and order, the government is promoting multicultural values with the new 'Just Be Nice, OK?' initiative, a government program is underway to revitalize Shining Ys's beaches, and mothers are routinely abandoning their children in the name of women's rights. Crime is totally unknown. Shining Ys's national animal is the impossible bird, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the Lucky Silver Mark.

Shining Ys is ranked 5th in Avalon and 5,658th in the world for Happiest Citizens, scoring 11 on the Relative Cheerfulness Rating.

Preview

NationStates by Max Barry, author of and