The Commonwealth of Latstat is a huge, cultured nation, renowned for its free-roaming dinosaurs, compulsory military service, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic population of 643 million Latstatians are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The large, socially-minded, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Welfare. The average income tax rate is 71.3%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The strong Latstatian economy, worth 49.6 trillion Credits 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 slick, highly efficient, quite specialized black market in Trout Farming, Information Technology, Arms Manufacturing, and Retail. 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 77,157 Credits, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Government workers are more efficient and more unhappy than ever, the Latstat City Film Festival recently voted 'Latstatian Getting Hit By Football' as best film, families waiting for delayed pipe installations hope daily for rain, and young and brooding teens are welcomed with open arms to the Dogwarts School of Strangeness and Sorcery. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Latstat's national animal is the Tailor Bird, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Latstat is ranked 1,859^th in the world and 7^th in Starlight for Largest Trout Fishing Sector, scoring 15,289.61 on the Nemo Depletion Efficiency Index.