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 remarkable for its hatred of cheese. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 1.48 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 concentrates mainly on Education, although the Environment and Social Equality are secondary priorities. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Ys. The average income tax rate is 94%, and even higher for the wealthy. 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.

Midnight pizza breaks are common among the work-from-home population, the number of students attending university has reached a record high, a weakened police force struggles to maintain law and order, and refugees from other nations are flocking to Shining Ys's border. 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 4th in Avalon and 3,117th in the world for Best Weather, with 114 Metres of Sunlight Above Expected.

Preview

NationStates by Max Barry, author of and