The Republic of Wilkshire is a behemoth, safe nation, ruled by President Paul Williams with a fair hand, and remarkable for its national health service, anti-smoking policies, and complete lack of prisons. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful population of 50.699 billion Wilkshireans love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.

The enormous, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Vasbury. The income tax rate is 100%.

The frighteningly efficient Wilkshirean economy, worth an astonishing 17,850 trillion wilkoes a year, is extremely specialized and mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an amazing 352,081 wilkoes, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

People stand their fridges back-to-front to benefit from the free heating, the inside lane of every highway is for parked vehicles only, disaster relief budgets are growing like wildfire, and back-alley holistic doctors carry crystals in long trench coats. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Wilkshire's national animal is the cat, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Wilkshire is ranked 332,441^st in the world and 4,753^rd in The North Pacific for Largest Insurance Industry, scoring -96.3 on the Risk Expulsion Effectiveness Rating.