Location: the South Pacific

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The United Socialist States of Hyacinthia is a huge, economically powerful nation, notable for its sprawling nuclear power plants. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 580 million are ruled by a mostly-benevolent dictator, who grants the populace the freedom to live their own lives but watches carefully for anyone to slip up.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, corrupt government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Commerce, Defence, and Law & Order. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Hyacinthia City. The average income tax rate is 45%, but much higher for the wealthy. A powerhouse of a private sector is led by the Retail industry, followed by Arms Manufacturing and Uranium Mining.

Frequent fliers are obliged to submit to invasive security procedures by government security, almost half of the child population live rough on the streets, property values in suburbs have nosedived after the middle class were forced to live next door to ethnic minorities, and the armed forces are locked in an expensive and bloody war abroad to stamp out possible terrorists. Crime is moderate, probably because of the country's utter lack of prisons. Hyacinthia's national animal is the Owl, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its currency is the Drachma.

Hyacinthia is ranked 481st in the South Pacific and 15,227th 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