Location: the Pacific

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Federal Republic of Pancake is a huge, cultured nation, ruled by Leader with an iron fist, and renowned for its punitive income tax rates. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 948 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 Education, Defence, and Commerce. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Pancake City. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 90%. A powerhouse of a private sector is led by the Beef-Based Agriculture, Tourism, and Uranium Mining industries.

Postmen have been arrested in job lots for selling junk mail as home insulation, the public are free to vote for whomever the government wants in office, people regularly disappear off the streets and all evidence of them is destroyed, and school uniforms are compulsory. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Pancake's national animal is the Penguin, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its currency is the Pancake.

Pancake is ranked 3,809th in the Pacific and 90,044th in the world for Shortest Average Lifespan, scoring -22 on the Bus Surprisal Index.

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NationStates by Max Barry, author of and