The Republic of Izern 48 is a huge, safe nation, renowned for its avant-garde cinema, irreverence towards religion, and absence of drug laws. The hard-nosed population of 860 million Izern 48ians are prohibited from doing almost everything except voting, which they do timidly and conservatively.

The medium-sized government is primarily concerned with Defense, although Law & Order, Administration, and Education are also considered important. The average income tax rate is 46.9%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The Izern 48ian economy, worth 50.0 trillion marks a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Arms Manufacturing industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing, Cheese Exports, and Furniture Restoration. Black market activity is frequent. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 58,170 marks, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The government regrets to say that it is forced to make cuts to citizens, voting is voluntary, pretending to be prejudiced is a good way to get out of jury duty, and funeral directors are frequently looking at their watches during funerals. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Izern 48's national animal is the fox, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Izern 48 is ranked 54,516^th in the world and 15^th in New Izern Farm Thingymabob for Most Cultured, scoring 72 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.