The Godly Republic of Ikania is a gargantuan, cultured nation, ruled by Bürgermeisterin Magdalene Tassia with an even hand, and renowned for its sprawling nuclear power plants, complete lack of prisons, and public floggings. The compassionate, humorless population of 25.248 billion Ikanians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The enormous, corrupt, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Education, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Tassing. The average income tax rate is 92.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Ikanian economy, worth a remarkable 3,430 trillion gulders a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a large, well-organized, highly specialized black market in Information Technology, Retail, Tourism, and Book Publishing. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is an impressive 135,884 gulders, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Nature reserves often contain artificial waterfalls and concrete paths, the space program has been reduced to Bürgermeisterin Magdalene Tassia's nephew playing with a cardboard space shuttle, a town hall is called each time a kid asks how far away the sun is, and nobody is allowed to stop the local daycare from reading Nietzsche to pre-schoolers. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Ikania's national animal is the beaver, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is Anabaptism.

Ikania is ranked 6,548^th in the world and 33^rd in the Plains of Perdition for Nicest Citizens, with 40.2 average smiles per day.