The Grand Duchy of Shovlinkadink is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its barren, inhospitable landscape and irreverence towards religion. The hard-working, democratic population of 271 million Shovlinkadinkians enjoy a sensible mix of personal and economic freedoms, while the political process is open and the people's right to vote held sacrosanct.

The relatively small government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Healthcare, and Defense. The average income tax rate is 17.8%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The strong Shovlinkadinkian economy, worth 16.2 trillion Shovlinkian Guilders a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Automobile Manufacturing industry, with major contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Door-to-door Insurance Sales, and Cheese Exports. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 59,602 Shovlinkian Guilders, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.6 times as much as the poorest.

Citizens cannot change their light bulbs without approval from an international committee, newspapers are celebrating Leader saving over a million cats from trees, lawyers spend as much time preparing their make-up as they do their briefs, and droves of former desperados are applying to join the border police. Crime is almost non-existent, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Shovlinkadink's national animal is the Arctic fox, which can occasionally be seen sifting through garbage in the nation's cities.

Shovlinkadink is ranked 119,873^rd in the world and 178^th in The Region That Has No Big Banks for Most Subsidized Industry, scoring 975.28 on the Gilded Widget Scale.