The Federal Republic of Gatos is a massive, genial nation, renowned for its museums and concert halls, complete lack of prisons, and absence of drug laws. The compassionate, democratic population of 4.381 billion Gatos hold their civil and political rights very dear, although the wealthy and those in business tend to be viewed with suspicion.

The medium-sized, liberal, outspoken government prioritizes Education, with Industry, Administration, and Environment also on the agenda, while Defense and Spirituality aren't funded at all. The average income tax rate is 68.4%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient a Gato economy, worth 504 trillion Gatosian Dollars a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector is dominated by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Tourism, Book Publishing, and Retail. Average income is an impressive 115,197 Gatosian Dollars, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.2 times as much as the poorest.

People seem disproportionately distraught when told a museum has a phones-off policy, many marriages go virtually unconsummated, construction of the Really Big Hadron Collider is underway, and it is not politically correct to suspect that a serially convicted burglar might steal again. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Gatos's national animal is the Cat, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Gatos is ranked 27,984^th in the world and 1,582^nd in Balder for Most Cultured, scoring 82 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.