Location: 10000 Islands

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Syndicate of Hayden Island is a gargantuan, cultured nation, notable for its hatred of cheese. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 16.621 billion are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, socially-minded government stops and the rest of society begins, but it is effectively ruled by the Department of Social Welfare, with areas such as Religion & Spirituality and Defence receiving almost no funds by comparison. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Portland. The average income tax rate is 82%, 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.

Fur coats have become the latest fashion trend, armed police units patrol the roads late at night, cheese has become the new icon of political dissent, and postmen have been arrested in job lots for selling junk mail as home insulation. Crime -- especially youth-related -- is crippling, and the police force struggles against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Hayden Island's national animal is the Raven, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the Credit.

Hayden Island is ranked 377th in 10000 Islands and 11,898th in the world for Largest Public Sector, scoring 21 on the Bureaucratic Comprehensiveness Rating Scale Index.

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NationStates by Max Barry, author of and