Location: The East Pacific

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Protectorate of Svatopluk is a huge, environmentally stunning nation, remarkable for its national health service. Its compassionate, hard-working, cynical population of 737 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 government stops and the rest of society begins, but it concentrates mainly on Education, although Law & Order and Healthcare are secondary priorities. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 39%. 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.

Libraries are now installed with jacuzzis and mini-bars, postmen have been arrested in job lots for selling junk mail as home insulation, scenic mountain valleys are flooded with water as damming projects get underway, and new safety regulations require all cars manufactured in Svatopluk to be bombproof. Crime -- especially youth-related -- is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Svatopluk's national animal is the Früb, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the Zdarf.

Svatopluk is ranked 3,472nd in The East Pacific and 78,150th in the world for Shortest Average Lifespan, scoring -16 on the Bus Surprisal Index.

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NationStates by Max Barry, author of and