The Republic of Canovium is a colossal, efficient nation, ruled by Rienzi with an even hand, and renowned for its irreverence towards religion, punitive income tax rates, and devotion to social welfare. The compassionate, humorless population of 9.031 billion Canovians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, corrupt morass — juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Healthcare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Shenandoah. The average income tax rate is 95.2%.

The frighteningly efficient Canoviumian economy, worth 984 trillion Credits a year, is extremely specialized and mostly made up of the Book Publishing industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology. Black market activity is frequent. Average income is an impressive 109,002 Credits, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

History textbook pages are used as impromptu tissues by distraught students, the housing market has collapsed like an overbaked Brancalandian souffle, the army spends more time producing 'romantic videos' than actually training soldiers, and criminals and college students are taking an interest in the government's new weed-killing program. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Canovium's national animal is the Eagle, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies, and its national religion is Christianity.

Canovium is ranked 230,314^th in the world and 1,019^th in Europe for Most Primitive, scoring -290.61 on the Scary Big Number Scale.