The Sultanate of Blitheness is a huge, efficient nation, remarkable for its public floggings, frequent executions, and irreverence towards religion. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 638 million Blithenessians are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The relatively small, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Healthcare, and Defense. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 15.2%.

The very strong Blithenessian economy, worth 36.3 trillion blithes a year, is led by the Trout Farming industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology, Woodchip Exports, and Furniture Restoration. Average income is 56,924 blithes, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 196,048 per year while the poor average 12,107, a ratio of 16.2 to 1.

Conductors wield diamond-encrusted batons to fit in with their freshly gilded surroundings, drugs containing the compound "oleum de serpens" are being sold to cancer patients, the streets are increasingly clogged with poverty-stricken beggars, and the name of the "Butcher of Bigtopia" adorns shirts across Blitheness. Crime is moderate, possibly because it is difficult to make it through a day without breaking one of the country's many regulations. Blitheness's national animal is the vacuum salesman, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Blitheness is ranked 239,085^th in the world and 2,939^th in the West Pacific for Largest Gambling Industry, scoring -5.18 on the Kelly Criterion Productivity Index.