The Banana Bread Provider of Erastide is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by Polgara with an even hand, and notable for its complete lack of prisons, prohibition of alcohol, and smutty television. The compassionate, cheerful population of 46.879 billion Erastideans 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, socially-minded morass — juggles the competing demands of Education, Environment, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Kytum. The average income tax rate is 99.8%.

The enormous but sluggish Erastian economy, worth a remarkable 2,277 trillion ducats a year, is driven almost entirely by government activity. The industrial sector, which is extremely specialized, is mostly made up of the Book Publishing industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 48,583 ducats, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The new 'Who Wants To Be A Politician' election debate auditions are more popular than the debates themselves, kindergartners love the free balloons that their schools give them, educators and parents alike are allowing children to view the internet again after violent videos were purged, and prankster scientists legally change their names to silly pseudonyms before major discoveries. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Erastide's national animal is the peacock, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Erastide is ranked 173^rd in the world and 1^st in Lemuria for Most Beautiful Environments, with 8,961.57 pounds of wildlife per square mile.