Location: the Rejected Realms

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Skandistan of Gettersburg is a colossal, environmentally stunning nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its hard-nosed, intelligent population of 5.674 billion are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whoever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Education, Defence, and the Environment. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Iron Strom. The average income tax rate is 95%. 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.

Members of Parliament operate under a PAYE scheme, Gettersburg's famous countrysides are shrouded by wind farms, protesters are up in arms over new nuclear power stations, and customs turn away those considered to have an unfavourable ethnicity. Crime -- especially youth-related -- is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Gettersburg's national animal is the Dog, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, its national religion is Kharijite, and its currency is the Pounds.

Gettersburg is ranked 1,286th in the Rejected Realms and 100,280th in the world for Largest Insurance Industry, scoring -10 on the Risk Expulsion Effectiveness Rating.

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NationStates by Max Barry, author of and