Location: the West Pacific

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Free Land of Ergnuften is a huge, cultured nation, renowned for its complete lack of prisons. Its compassionate, cynical population of 567 million are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, socially-minded government stops and the rest of society begins, but it devotes most of its attentions to Education, with areas such as Commerce and Religion & Spirituality receiving almost no funds by comparison. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Archane. The average income tax rate is 50%, and even higher for the wealthy. A substantial private sector is led by the Pizza Delivery industry, followed by Tourism and Furniture Restoration.

Pharmacies close down as medicinal drugs are sold freely by the government, the government is attempting to impose a new national language on the public, genetic research is temporarily tied up in government red tape, and the government has ordered a moratorium on referenda. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Ergnuften's national animal is the squirabbit, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the fleeb.

Ergnuften is ranked 3,731st in the West Pacific and 84,629th in the world for Largest Insurance Industry, scoring -3 on the Risk Expulsion Effectiveness Rating.

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NationStates by Max Barry, author of and